


What makes a hero?

by Alpacasarethegreenestanimal



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Deceit Sanders Being An Asshole, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Physical Abuse, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 16:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 60,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14856183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alpacasarethegreenestanimal/pseuds/Alpacasarethegreenestanimal
Summary: For the last two years the city of Sanders has been under the attack of the two villains Deceit and Anxiety, and for the last two years it has been defended by the three heroes Morality, Logic and Creativity.However, no one can ever be classified as inherently good or bad, and sometimes a person isn't all that they appear to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There is quite alot of swearing i this fic (just so you know if you have a problem with that) and there are themes of an emotionally and physically abuse relationship/friendship throughout

In a world where people had started to develop abilities that couldn't be explained, it wasn't surprising that before long people began to decide that they were the hero the world needed. Given the amount of people in the world who believe that they can make it a better place, it was clear from the moment people started to possess abilities which could actually do such a thing that some idealistic idiots would decide that they had what it takes, and that saving the world would be a great use of their time. Of course, this also meant that those people who wanted to do things that they weren't supposed to, for all sorts of reasons, began developing abilities too. This lead to the birth of two types of people: superheroes and supervillains. 

Of course life is never really this cut and dry, no one is ever inherently good or inherently bad, but for the sake of everything being simpler we will say that there are the good guys, and the bad guys. 

...

“Patton! Guess what?! We’re on the news again!” Roman Lynch bounded into the kitchen to where Patton McAllister was currently attempting to make pasta. 

Logan Collins sighed from the corner of the room. “I do not understand why this has caused you such excitement. We, or rather our alter egos, are featured on the news at least three times a week, even if just in passing. Not to mention the fact that the excessive news coverage of every fight we have against Anxiety and Deceit increases the likelihood of our identities being uncovered. A decrease in the news stories concerning us would therefore actually be a lot more beneficial than an increase, as it would improve our chances of remaining anonymous.”

Roman twirled around to face his logical friend and lifted up his arms, clutched his chest dramatically on the opposite side to where his heart actually was. “A decrease in the amount of time that I am on the news!? Such a thing is unthinkable! The people need me, Logan. How can they survive if they do not see their Prince doing heroic acts to defend their city every night?!”

“Roman, as far as I know the public seeing you on their TV screen will do nothing to increase their chance of survival”, Logan stated before turning back to his copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. 

Whatever Roman was about to say was suddenly cut off by the sound of the smoke alarm sounding for the third time that month. 

“Patton did you just burn the pasta?! Is that even physically possible? Logan is it possible to burn pasta?” Roman screamed before joining Patton in running frantically around the room. After a few moments that consisted of Logan watching disprovingly as two grown men ran around screaming two octaves higher than a five-year-old girl who had just seen a spider, Logan calmly crushed the smoke alarm with his telekinesis before the trio experienced yet another complaint from their neighbors, and then returned to his book. 

There was a moment of silence before the two screaming superheros slowly calmed down and stopped charging around the room like they were being chased by a herd of angry bulls. 

“Sorry kiddo!” Patton spluttered after catching his breath. “I guess our dinner just cooked a little pasta then I expected!”. Logan sighed dramatically from across the room. 

Realising that his little mishap had left them without anything to eat, Patton grabbed the pan of pasta and hastily threw it into the sink. Roman, who had just realised how hungry he was as well as the fact that the three of them had ordered take-out the night before and so there was no way Logan would allow them to order some tonight, dashed forward and began to graciously assist Patton in preparing another batch of pasta. This basically consisted of Roman putting everything in the wrong place, while Patton struggled to both keep him under control and not cause something to explode (again).

Meanwhile, Logan had preoccupied himself with the task of staring intently at his book and trying to convince himself that he was not smiling fondly at the two idiots who were currently fighting over how pasta should be added to a pan.

…

The three superheroes found themselves all sitting together on their couch with slightly singed bowls of pasta sometime later. 

“-la McNeill, Charlie Simons and Stacy Campbell being amongst the victims of yet another attack from Deceit and Anxiety last night. Whilst Logic, Morality and Creativity were able to fight the two villains off, this latest attack brings the villainous duo’s death count up to 56 people over the last two years. The public is beginning to wonder if we will ever be safe from these murderers or if our city’s heroes may be in over their heads.”

Roman made a disgruntled noise and turned to the others with a rather wounded expression. Logan sighed. 

“Well, Roman, I don't know why you are so surprised. It is true that we have been fighting the two of them for almost two years now and are yet to capture them and turn them over to the authorities-”

“But it isn't like we haven't been fighting them! We certainly aren't ‘in over our heads’” Roman grumbled before turning back to the screen with a pout on his face. 

“It's alright Roman”, Patton said. “We’re getting closer and closer to beating them each time. We can do this. Together we will defeat Anxiety and Deceit and stop them from hurting anyone else!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's chapter 2.
> 
> TW: Mention of bullying

Virgil was pacing around his bedroom. The 7 civilians who had died last night had taken Anxiety and Deceit’s total death count up to 56. Of course Virgil was a villain, and so he was meant to kill people, but he couldn't help scowl at the fact that it was actually Creativity, not him, who had thrown the truck that had smashed into the group of pedestrians. But of course, he was the one who was blamed, because he was the bad guy. 

This was just how it had always been. Virgil was a textbook villain, with his ability to manipulate shadows labelling him as evil from the start. Creativity, or “The Prince” as his many adoring fans had begun calling him, was the perfect hero. His superspeed and superstrength, tendency to be over dramatic in both his gestures and his speech, as well as his ridiculous need to fight with a sword (Seriously?! A sword?) had labelled him as the ultimate hero from the moment he had first appeared about two years ago. Of course Logic and Morality were also idealistic idiots, but the Prince had somehow mastered the art of not only being a clueless moron all of the time, but also of being the most self-righteous, arrogant arsehole Virgil had ever met. 

For Virgil, The Prince represented all the people throughout his life that had never seen him as anything but the bad guy. When Virgil found himself face to face with Creativity, while Deceit used his shapeshifting and copying abilities to combat Logic’s telekinesis and Morality ran around shielding the two of them and healing civilians, he saw reflected back at him the society who had made him who he was today. 

He saw Jimmy Samuels repeatedly kicking Virgil as he lay on his side behind the school, laughing with his friends as they tried to goad him into fighting back, while Virgil desperately tried to contain his shadows because he didn't want to prove them right. He wasn't evil! He wasn't! 

He saw multiple headteachers look at him apologetically while telling him that he was a promising student but that they couldn't allow him to stay at the school due to his frequent unwarranted attacks against upstanding members of the school, even as Virgil sat in their office covered in bruises and pleaded with them to listen to his side of the story. It wasn't his fault! He didn't mean to! 

He saw Mitchell Turner using the fact that Virgil could control the shadows to convince Virgil’s only friend Elliot that Virgil was “evil and a bad influence”, while Virgil was left alone desperately trying to convince Elliot that the only one who was “evil and a bad influence” was Elliot’s boyfriend Mitchell. He wasn't the bad influence. He wasn't evil! 

He saw his parents yelling at him night after night as they lectured him about why he couldn’t be like his older brother, about why he had always to hurt people, before they eventually threw him out when he was seventeen. He never meant to hurt anyone! Why didn't they believe him?! 

Why did no one ever believe him? 

But he had learnt since then. He was evil, and it was his fault, and he was the bad influence, and he had meant to hurt people. Because that was who he was. He was the bad guy. And that was all he would ever be. 

… 

“Virgil. Virgil!? VIRGIL?! Oh for God's sake I know you were too stupid to even finish school but one would hope that you would at least know what to do when you heard someone SHOUTING YOUR NAME!”

Virgil reluctantly opened the door to his room and began to drag his feet down the stairs. “Yes?”

“Thank goodness. I was beginning to think you were deaf as well as dumb. What took you so long?” Deceit appeared from the sitting room, his yellow eye gleaming in the dark hallway. Deceit’s shapeshifting abilities meant he could copy the appearance and powers of any human or animal he chose. The reason that he therefore chose to transform half his face into a snake of all things whenever he didn't have to pretend to be a normal citizen was lost to Virgil. 

“Sorry, I… I was jus-”

“We have more important things to discuss. Such as the fact that we have been fighting Creativity, Logic and Morality for the best part of two years now and apart from damaging the occasional building you have come no closer to stopping either Creativity or Morality from being thorns in my side. I knew you were little more then incompetent at the best of times, but I had hoped you wouldn't be this useless at even the most simple of tasks.”

Virgil grimaced. He should have known Deceit would bring this up again, especially after last night when Morality’s shielding had caused Deceit’s “ingenious” plan to fail, resulting in the three heroes still being alive and Deceit being in a particularly atrocious mood. 

“I said I would deal with Logic, whose telekinesis clearly makes him the most powerful of the three, and so have hardly given you a difficult task. But it seems you can't even handle someone who is still playing dress-up as a Disney Prince, and his little “sidekick” Morality who is somehow even more useless than you.”

“I'm sorry! I've been trying-”

“Oh well that's just brilliant, Verge. You've been trying. You've been trying not be a total waste of space. You've been trying not to be a complete failure at everything you do. Too bad that you haven't actually managed it. Maybe you could go a step further and actually start doing something useful.”

It did not help Deceit’s temper that at that very moment a muffled giggle could be heard from the man on the stairs, who had just realised how similar Deceit’s rant had been to Yoda’s ‘Do or do not. There is no try’. 

“Oh I'm sorry Virgil I didn't realise I had said something so amusing.” Virgil shuddered as Deceit’s voice dropped to what was almost a whisper. Deceit screaming at him was fine, but it was when his voice became soft and gentle Virgil knew that he had really fucked up. 

Virgil quickly stammered an apology and dashed into the kitchen to begin preparing dinner. In times like these it was always better to stay out of Deceit’s way. When Deceit took Virgil in almost three years ago several things had become clear to Virgil very quickly: avoiding Deceit when he looked ready to murder someone was one of them. 

His treatment at the hands of society had ingrained who and what he was into his head. He knew he was a villain, he knew he was evil, and he knew that the only place he belonged was with Deceit, as by working with him Virgil could finally fight back against all those people who had made his life suck. 

But to do that he knew that had to listen to Deceit, do what he said and not piss him off, because Deceit was the one who could actually do something to change society. 

Because Virgil knew who he was, and who he was was finally who he was meant to be. He had stopped fighting the truth. He was meant to be evil, and so that was who he was. And here, with Deceit, was where he belonged. 

It wasn't like someone like him could ever be anything else.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has commented or left kudos! Your support really means alot to me. Anyway, on with the chapter.

Patton had always considered himself something of a morning person. While Logan and Roman tended to get up slightly later, Patton was always the first one awake, partly due to his obsession to make breakfast for everyone even if he had been up until 5am rewatching Parks and Recreation the night before.

Patton always enjoyed making breakfast, especially as it seemed to be the one of the only types of food that he could both make without causing something to explode and also make exceptionally well, as Roman had told him on several occasions while repeatedly shoveling said food into his mouth. Even though Logan had informed him multiple times that it was illogical, as ‘one cannot be better at cooking some foods than they are at cooking others just because the foods are meant to be served at different times of day’, Patton stood by the fact that he was the most talented at making breakfast. 

Patton had also found that he was pretty good at making lunch, but it was dinner where things always seemed to go wrong, no matter what he decided to make. He had once even tried making bacon and eggs for dinner, but despite having succeeded in making them for breakfast hundreds of times, this particular event had become forever known by Roman as ‘The Great Bacon Disaster of 2016’. 

… 

By the time Logan had made himself a cup of coffee and Roman had staggered into the room, having left his bed only due to the smell of food, Patton had finished preparing the pancakes he had decided to make and had placed them onto the table. As the three superheroes sat down to eat their breakfast, Logan coughed politely to get the attention of the other two before they became too distracted by the food. 

“Now that we are all gathered here and have had last night off I believe we should discuss what happened yesterday, as well as work out how we can improve our tactics and so increase our chances of actually capturing Anxiety and Deceit in the future.”

Roman rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. “And how exactly can we improve, Oh Wise One?”

“I am glad you asked”, Logan responded, causing Roman to roll his eyes again. “For one thing, Patton used his shields for offense last night, which was different to what he usually does and so caught Deceit off guard. This was very beneficial towards us last night as it aided us in fighting off both Deceit and Anxiety. We should therefore aim to put more tactics into place that Deceit will not have planned for. We could also consider involving Patton in combat more, especially when there are no civilians in the area who need assistance, as this would help even our chances against Anxiety and Deceit.”

Patton smiled at Logan’s inadvertent compliment. As his powers were more for protecting than for fighting, Patton often found himself feeling useless when watching the others fight, as he wished that he could do more to protect and help them with powers more suited to that of a superhero. He never felt that he was doing enough, and the snide comments of Deceit about whether he actually provided anything useful in their trio had done nothing to improve those feelings. The other two often lacked the insight to detect his dejected thoughts and therefore did little to combat them, and so even the most unwitting compliment from one of his two friends was enough to lift his mood. 

… 

After a half-an-hour long lecture from Logan on the proper way for the trio to fight their two enemies, Roman was finally free. As if he needed instructions on how to fight Anxiety. Whatever the others said the emo nightmare was his nemesis, and he would fight him however he wanted. 

Once the three superheroes had created an established rivalry against the two villains, it had quickly become apparent that Roman should be the one to fight Anxiety, while Logan should fight Deceit. Roman and the Incredible Sulk were clearly polar opposites, with Roman being the perfect hero and Anxiety being the textbook villain, and so both had been eager to fight against the other from the very start. 

Roman wasn't stupid, and he had noticed that Deceit and Anxiety’s attacks on the city had become more and more frequent. He had a feeling that the two villains would be showing their ugly faces again sooner rather than later, and when they did The Prince would be ready to swoop down and finally bring an end to Deceit and Anxiety’s reign of terror. 

… 

“... And then, if you are actually competent enough to pull it off, we will then both proceed to…” Virgil tuned out Deceit’s seemingly endless explanation of what the plan of action was for their next attack and let his mind wander. It wasn't as though walking around causing havoc while waiting for three superheroes to turn up required an in-depth discussion. 

“Well then, let's go.”

“Wait, what? Now? As in right now?!”

“Yes, Virgil, right now. I had hoped that while you display little to no actual intelligence you would at least be able to comprehend the idea of leaving the house.”

“Well yeah, but don't we usually wait a bit longer between each attack?”

“I see that you've also never come across the phrase ‘the element of surprise’.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I guess that makes sense.”

“Great. Well now that you've finally wrapped your brain around what must have been incredibly hard for you to understand, we shall go. Unless you've got a problem with that?”

“No”, Virgil muttered before hurrying after Deceit, who had just grabbed his bowler hat before dramatically placing it on his head like an oddly shaped crown and striding out of the house like a king entering his kingdom. 

Being Anxiety had always been something of a comfort for Virgil. His playful banter with Princey and his ‘I don't give a shit’ attitude made being Anxiety a welcome escape from being Virgil. But however much he enjoyed being Anxiety, he definitely didn't feel ready to become the sarcastic and apathetic villain so soon after the last time, due to the amount of energy required to not be such an anxious mess all the time. 

Well, it wasn't like he had much of a choice, and besides, he knew it would be nice to escape being the jumble of stupidity and uselessness that was Virgil.


	4. Chapter 4

“Anxiety and Deceit have been spotted on the streets once again. I am being informed that Deceit has just disappeared and his whereabouts are unknown. We do, however, have live footage of Anxiety using his shadows to tear down the statue of The Prince that was put up last year after he saved 27 civilians-”

“He is doing what?!”, Roman screamed as he dashed into the room where Patton and Logan were currently staring at the TV. “How dare he?! How DARE he?! That is my statue! How-”

“I don't want to assume Anxiety’s intentions, but I do believe that he is attacking it because it is your statue.”

Roman sighed before dashing into his room to change into his superhero outfit. “We must go and defend our city”, the hero cried after emerging from his room 15 seconds later, before charging out of the door. 

“Roman, you-” Patton’s cry was rendered unnecessary as Roman dashed back into the room. 

“Forgot my shoes”, Roman announced, before grabbing them and making his way back towards the door. 

“And my sword”, he stated turning back around. 

“And my pants…”

… 

Once the three superheroes had dressed for the occasion and Roman had done his obligatory speech on the nobility and courage that they would demonstrate today by defending their city, the trio hurriedly left the house in search of their two enemies. 

While Roman speed off into the distance, muttering to himself about emo nightmares and their various aggravating actions, one of which included the assault and subsequent defilement of Roman’s baby, Logan was left with only Patton to lecture on how the three of them had to remain careful. 

“... While we should be throwing everything we have at Anxiety and Deceit, the fact remains that high-risk, foolish actions bordering on stupidity are best avoided in order to-”

Logan trailed off at the sight of Roman literally jumping into the huge mass of shadows that was filling the square they had just walked into. 

“On second thoughts, just try to stop Roman doing anything stupid.”

Logan turned back to where Roman had just disappeared. 

“I stand corrected. Patton, please try to stop Roman doing anything even more stupid.”

… 

“Anxiety!” Roman yelled. “Where are you, you Robert Downer Jr?!”

“How many of those have you got?”, Anxiety asked incredulously as he appeared behind Roman. 

Roman charged at Anxiety with a sword, who stepped out of the way and stuck his foot out, causing Roman to fall flat on his face. 

Roman quickly sprung back up and spun around to face the villain. “I saw what you did to my darling baby! This time you have gone too far!!”

“Seriously, this is where you cross the line?!” Anxiety rolled his eyes before disappearing into his shadows once more. Roman’s heart froze as he found himself totally surrounded by darkness. Maybe charging into this headfirst hadn't been such a great idea after all. 

“Oh so you’re hiding from me now. I'm honoured.”

Anxiety reappeared with a scowl on his face. “I'm not hiding from you, I'm just being clever. I guess that’s probably quite hard for you to understand, Princey.”

Now it was Roman’s turn to scowl. “So why did you take down my statue?”, Roman asked as Anxiety disappeared once again. “Oh come on, don't run away. What was the point?”

Roman heard Anxiety’s voice echoing all around him. It seemed to come directly from the shadows that were surrounding him. “Well it was partly because I wanted to take down a symbol, because of the society you represent, but it was mainly a distraction.”

Roman froze. “A distraction?”

“Well we couldn't have you all together at once, could we? After all, you never seem to do quite such a good job of stopping us when you're all on your own.”

… 

Logan and Patton froze as a fire began to rise from one of the shops a little way down one of the side roads. Before Logan could say anything Patton quickly ran off to aid the civilians trapped in the fire, leaving him alone. 

“Logic, how lovely to see you again.” Logan turned around and found himself staring straight into Deceit’s yellow eye. 

“Deceit”, Logan addressed the villain calmly, “How have you been?”

“Oh, not too bad actually. And you?”

“As well as can be expected.”

“Oh? Nothing too unpleasant going on, I should hope.”

“Nothing of note, no.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“Indeed.”

“Well”, Deceit said, with a resigned sigh, “I believe the time for small talk is over. Shall we begin?”

Logan nodded curtly, using his telekinesis to fling Deceit across the square and causing him to land right where Anxiety’s shadows began. Deceit laughed, before transforming himself into Patton and healing himself. Logan clenched his fists at Deceit having the nerve to wear the face of one of his close friends, but before Logan could attack him again Deceit disappeared into Anxiety’s shadows. 

Logan froze as he processed the fact that Deceit had most likely transformed into Anxiety, giving him control over the entire huge mass of shadows that Logan could see in front of him. 

Suddenly the shadows lunged towards him, and Logan found himself completely surrounded by darkness. 

“Logic…”, Logan turned around, trying to find the source of Anxiety’s voice. “Logic… You know how much it annoys me when you ignore me…”

Logan shuddered at the silky tone that had replaced the sharp, biting one that Logan was used to associating with Anxiety’s voice. While he had not had many encounters with the other villain, hearing Deceit’s usual taunting comments but from Anxiety’s mouth was something that Logan was finding incredibly unsettling. 

“I thought you were meant to be the smart one.” The voice that seemed to come from everywhere had suddenly converged into a single location, and Logan whipped around to find himself face to face with Deceit. He started at Deceit’s appearance, whose signature self-assured smirk looked incredibly out of place set upon Anxiety’s white foundation. 

“Yes, I thought it was about time I changed things up a little”, Deceit smirked, gesturing to his altered appearance. “Of course his makeup has always been stupid, and a bit too racoon for my taste, but his face does come with some incredible benefits.”

Before Logan could do anything else shadows began wrapping themselves around his neck, cutting off his air. He struggled against them as his vision started to go black from lack of oxygen  
Logan thought he could hear Deceit laughing in the background, as he continued to struggle before everything went black and he lost consciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

Patton frantically ran down the road, eyes widening at the fire that was currently blazing inside a jewellery store. Assessing the situation with as little panic as the hero could manage, his eyes immediately focused on the five people still in the building. 

Patton charged inside and quickly put up a shield in case the building began to collapse. Sprinting over to the two people lying on the floor, he scanned for injuries. There was teenage boy seemed to have broken his leg due to the partial collapse of the ceiling, and a middle aged women who had a particularly nasty burn on her arm. Both seemed to be coughing violently due to the smoke. 

Patton pushed away the three people who were frantically trying to drag the woman and teenager out of the building, before placing his hands on the two of them and watching as the boy’s leg straightened and the woman's arm returned to its natural colour. He then helped the boy up as one of the others did the same with the woman and, still maintaining the shield to keep any debris injuring anyone, Patton led the five civilians out of the building. 

Once they were all out, Patton smiled as a frantic mother ran up and hugged him, before turning to her teenage son and holding him tightly with tears rolling down his face. Patton smiled, knowing that everyone was safe. Saving people was why he had become a superhero in the first place, after all. 

Once the firemen and an ambulance had started to arrive, Patton breathed a sigh of relief. He turned around to look for Logan, and that was when he saw the mass of shadows that were now taking up the entire square. Neither Roman, Logan, Anxiety or Deceit could be seen. 

Patton froze as he remembered Logan’s warning about how they had to stick together. This was all his fault! He had run off at the obvious distraction of a burning building and had left Logan alone. 

He desperately sprinted up to the shadows, but stopped himself from going in. He would be no use to Logan or Roman if he was stuck in Anxiety’s shadows. 

“Logic! Creativity!” Patton called out desperately. He heard nothing. Patton began to panic as he realised how little use he was to his friends. He didn't even know where they were! What if they were counting on him to save them? What if Deceit and Anxiety had already taken them away, or they were lying in the ground bleeding, in desperate need of healing?! 

Patton fought his instinct to charge into the shadows. A little voice in his head that sounded like Logan urged him to think logically. 

‘What would Logan do?’ Patton thought desperately. ‘What would Logan do?’

… 

After spending what felt like hours frantically searching for an idea, Patton was almost in tears. What use was he if he couldn't even help his friends? If he couldn't even find them? 

Patton could almost hear Deceit laughing at him. He had always known that out of all of them he was the least useful, but he had hoped he was doing better! And now he was stuck, alone and without the wisdom of Logan or the bravery of Roman to figure out what to do. 

The fire had obviously been put there to distract him and to separate the group, but it seemed that Deceit had done nothing else to stop him getting in the way. Ignoring the feeling of being punched in the gut that always came with the knowledge that Deceit and Anxiety didn't need to do anything more than start a small fire to trick him into running off and being out of the action, Patton stared at the shadows with determination. 

If Anxiety and Deceit didn't think he was a big enough threat to be a problem, he would use it to his advantage. Patton nodded in resolve, and then froze when he heard Deceit laughing again. That was definitely actually Deceit laughing, not his imagination, even though it also sounded slightly like his signature laugh was in Anxiety’s voice. 

Hastily putting a shield around himself to avoid contact with the shadows, Patton ran into them, heading straight towards the place he had last heard Deceit laughing, filled with dread. 

… 

Roman lunged into the shadows again, trying desperately to find Anxiety. 

“What have you done with Morality and Logic?” Roman snarled, trying to keep Anxiety talking so he could locate the source of the villain’s voice. 

“Well”, Anxiety drawled, with a tone that indicated he was clearly smirking at Roman and enjoying his desperate attempts to find out where he was. “Morality is currently running headfirst into a burning building, so I do hope he is doing okay.”

Roman growled at the sarcastically sympathetic sigh that came from Anxiety’s smug face, which had just appeared three inches in front of him, before thrusting his sword straight in front of him and yelling in frustration as Anxiety disappeared again. 

“Logic, on the other hand, is currently facing off against Deceit.” Anxiety laughed. “And you may be interested to know that all these shadows aren't just for show.”

“What the hell do you mean?! We both know there is no way that Deceit can defeat Logic!” Roman yelled with a lot more confidence than he actually felt. “When he takes someone else’s form and copies their abilities, his copy is never as strong as the real ability.”

Roman smiled, relieved that for once he had actually listened to one of the nerd’s lectures on the two villains.

“True. Very true…”

Roman twirled around and lunged at the shadows once more. 

“Careful there, Princey.” The shadows growled. “I thought you wanted to know what was happening to your friend.”

“Well go on then, JD-elightful, enlighten me.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Anxiety appeared in front of him. 

“You know, JD? From Heathers?” Roman rolled his eyes as Anxiety continued to stare at him blankly. “I waste my best material on you.”

“Whatever.” Anxiety disappeared again. “Stop interrupting my expositional, evil monologue okay, it's kind of getting rude. Anyway, as I was saying, Deceit can never copy abilities and use them to their full power. But if, let's say, he began to control shadows, and there were already a ton of them around… “

Roman’s eyes widened in fear. If Logan was really surrounded by shadows being controlled by Deceit, and he didn't have Roman’s superstrength which protected him from Anxiety using the shadows to contain him… 

“If you've hurt him…” Roman growled. 

“Wow, Princey, I am just so scared right now.”

Roman scowled and lunged at the shadows. 

“And how long exactly can you last, when you have to maintain all these shadows at once?” Roman said slowly, as he began to realise just how much energy Anxiety must be putting into sustaining so many shadows, and how the shadows had definitely become less dense since the start of their fight.

When the usually quick-witted villain didn't respond, Roman knew he'd struck a nerve. 

“What's wrong, Charlie Frown, trying to conserve your energy? You've been keeping this up for, um… I’d guess an hour? Maybe an hour and a half?”

“I'd be less worried about me and more worried about how long you can keep resisting my shadows before you don't have enough strength to fight against them.” Anxiety spat, finally replying. “You've been pulling away from them for, um… Half an hour? An hour?” Anxiety sang, clearly mimicking what Roman had just said, causing Roman to clench his fists. “How much longer can you keep this up?”

Roman scowled before renewing his vigorous stabs at the shadows. While his observation about Anxiety’s lack of energy was true, so was the villain’s point that he too had a limited supply of energy. 

“Fuck!”

Roman froze. Anxiety’s shadows had begun to slowly withdraw back into the villain, who had just appeared right in front of the hero, eyes wide in surprise and a sword sticking out of his stomach.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone who has been reading this. I am literally so thrilled that you are enjoying it. :) 
> 
> TW: mentions of a stab wound and blood, violence

Patton sighed in relief as he saw Anxiety’s shadows retreat, before freezing as he saw Logan lying on the ground with Deceit standing over him. 

“Get away from him!”

The villain turned around, his yellow eye sparkling with amusement, and a patronising smile on his face. 

“Morality, so nice of you to show up. I see you took a detour on the way. I do hope it wasn't too much for you to handle. I wasn't too sure, given your usual success rate when doing, well,pretty much anything.”

He opened his mouth to retort but before he could Deceit turned into Logan and Patton was flung across the square. While Deceit has been talking he had gotten distracted and lowered his shield. Stupid. 

“Morality!” He glanced up to where Roman was sprinting towards him. “Are you alright? Where's Logic?!”

“I-I’m fine.” Patton said, before his heart froze. “What happened to you?! There's blood all over you!”

Roman looked away. “It’s, um… It's not mine.”

Patton’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of Anxiety lying on the ground, covered in blood. 

“Is he, er…” Patton’s voice shook. 

“No, he’s alive. I-I think.” Patton glanced at Roman, who was clearly a mess at the thought of having killed someone. After all, they were the heroes, not the villains. And they certainly weren't the type of people who would be the cause of someone lying unconscious in a pool of their own blood. 

Before Patton could do anything, although admittedly he had no idea what he was going to do, the two heroes saw Deceit walk up to the unconscious villain. Patton couldn't help but notice just how young Anxiety looked, and how he did not look at all like a bad guy when he wasn't attacking him or one of his friends. 

Patton shook the thought out of his head as he noticed Logan, who was still unconscious and being dragged away by Deceit.

“Well as much as I'd love to continue our time together, it looks like I'll have to settle for just one of you today.”

“Wait!” Patton yelled. Deceit turned around, his eyebrows raised. 

“What can I do for you, Morality. I have places to be, and I would prefer not to have to fight you and also keep hold of two unconscious bodies.”

Patton turned to Roman, but due to both the amount of fighting Roman had engaged in as well as the fact that he was clearly still a nervous wreck from having just stabbed someone, Patton knew he wouldn’t be able to take on Deceit. And there was no way Patton could alone. 

“I’ll make you a deal!” Patton yelled desperately. 

“And what could you possibly offer me?”  
Deceit asked incredulously. 

“You can copy my healing abilities, but there is a high chance that you won't have enough strength to help him. I'll heal him, I'll heal Anxiety, and in exchange, you let Logic go.”

Deceit laughed. “That’s very kind of you Morality, but I think I'd like to hold on to Logic for a while, if you don't mind.”

Patton looked at him in shock. “You do realise that if I don't heal him, then there is every possibility tha-” Patton looked back at Roman, who was still staring straight at Anxiety’s pale body in shock. 

Patton looked Deceit straight in the eye. “If you don't take this deal, and you can't heal him enough, then Anxiety will die.”

Deceit looked straight back at Patton without blinking. “Then he dies.”

Deceit smirked at the two heroes once more before transforming into a famous teleporter from China and vanishing with both Logan and Anxiety, leaving Patton and Roman staring at the spot he used to be, unsure what exactly they were meant to do next. 

…

Virgil woke up with a start, immediately hissing at the pain coming from his stomach. It was clear that Deceit had tried to heal him, but just as Morality had predicted during the attempted trade that Virgil had barely been conscious for, Virgil had definitely not recovered. 

“I see you're awake.” Virgil flinched as he realised Deceit was in the room, staring out of Virgil’s window. Virgil took a few deep breaths, before slowly began to stand up, grimacing as he did so. 

“How are you feeling?”

“I, um… I'm fine.”

“Don’t lie to me, Virgil, you are most clearly not fine.”

“Well maybe I would be fine if you had let Morality heal me.” Virgil mumbled before panicking as Deceit turned around and stared directly at Virgil, eyes filled with anger. 

“Yes, Virgil, maybe I should've done. What a splendid idea. Then not only would your fuck-up be responsible for the fact that Morality and Creativity are still alive, it would have also meant I would have had to give up Logic, who I did actually manage to capture, no thanks to you. Honestly Virgil, I knew you were a screw up, but I had hoped that you would at least try to be useful. However, it seems as if I was wrong, because despite my efforts you still seem determined to fuck things up every single time!!”

Virgil began to back away. “I-I’m sorry! I didn't mean to, I swear, I just-”

“Shut the fuck up, Virgil! I have better things to do then listen to your excuses.”

“I’m sorry, I-” Virgil was cut off as Deceit struck him across the face, causing him to crash onto the ground. Deceit stalked over to him and grabbed a fistful of his hair. 

“When I tell you to shut up”, he whispered into Virgil’s ear. “You shut up. Am I clear, Virgil?”

“Y-ye…”

“I'm sorry, what was that?”

“Um… Ye-Yes.”

“Good. I'm glad we've got that understood. Now I'm going to take you through what we’re going to do next, and you aren't going to screw it up, okay?

…

Roman was lying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. After the two heroes had gotten over the shock of watching Logan being taken away by Deceit, they had made their way back to their shared apartment. Roman had then watched Patton retreat into his room without saying a word, tears rolling down the hero’s face at the thought of the danger that Logan was in. 

While Roman was also worried about Logan, he couldn't seem to get the image of Anxiety lying unconscious on the ground out of his head. He had known the villain for almost two years now, and while they were enemies, he had never wished him dead. The banter between the two of them had started to feel less and less malicious the more the two of them had fought, and while their relationship was not a friendly one by any means, the sight of Anxiety lying unconscious due to his own actions was a lot more painful than Roman cared to admit. 

Roman was the hero. It was meant to be Anxiety and Deceit who hurt people, not him. He was The Prince, and the ultimate hero, but what kind of hero stabbed someone in the stomach? The hero was meant to capture the villain and turn them over to the authorities, they weren't meant to hurt them, and they certainly weren't meant to kill them. 

Roman sighed, before closing his eyes and trying to block out the image of Anxiety lying on the ground, covered in blood.


	7. Chapter 7

When Logan regained consciousness, he found himself locked in a room which he assumed was a basement, due to the absence of windows. On further examination, Logan realised that the room also lacked any furniture. Clearly the person who had put him in this room didn't want Logan using his telekinesis to throw something at anything or anyone. 

Logan stood up, tested the door, and found it to be locked. He then attempted to force it open with his telekinesis, but the door remained shut. Coming to the rather concerning conclusion that he was currently locked in a basement with no way out and no sign of Patton or Roman, Logan returned to his former position on the floor. 

As the last thing Logan remembered was Deceit causing him to fall unconscious, he believed it sensible to assume that his mysterious captors were Deceit and Anxiety. It was still, however, unclear whether Patton and Roman were here with him. However, due to the fact that he was still alive, Logan concluded that this was probably not the case. 

Sighing at the fact that the two villains could have at least provided him with a book, Logan leaned back against the wall and hoped that one of his two captors would show their face soon. There was only so long Logan could sit in an empty room with nothing to do before he started to go insane, after all. 

… 

Some time later, although Logan couldn't be sure exactly how much later due to the lack of a clock in the room, the door opened. Before Logan could attack whoever had just entered the room, however, shadows reached out and flung him against the wall. 

“Logic”, the villain greeted him. “It's been a while.”

“What do you want, Anxiety?” 

“Well that isn't a very specific question. I would quite like to go to a My Chemical Romance concert, but unfortunately that's not a very achievable goal, and I doubt that was what you were referring to… ”

“I'm not quite following.”

“Whatever. We have to hurry, so if you would be so kind as to get off the floor-”

“And where exactly is it that we going?”

Anxiety sighed, as though their interaction was causing him physical pain. “Listen nerd, I really don't have time to take you through this properly, so I'm just going to give you the short version. You understand reality better than most, and that is very comforting, even though you're a clueless moron the rest of the time-”

“How dare you-”

“And honestly Deceit is a bit of a dick. So, I have decided to help you escape.”

“Really?” Logan said suspiciously. “You suddenly just decided to help me?”

“Look let's not read into this, and make it anymore angsty then it has go be. I've had my doubts for a while, so maybe you should focus less on being suspicious, and more on getting out of here, so that we're not still here arguing Deceit when gets back.”

Not seeing another option, Logan followed Anxiety out the door and up some stairs. He was then led down a corridor and then through the front door. 

Anxiety turned to face him. “So, you know somewhere we can go?”

Still suspicious, but conscious of the fact that this was a lot better than being back in that room, and knowing that as he was still recovering from his last fight with Deceit there was no way he would be able to overpower Anxiety, he reluctantly began to lead the way to the apartment he shared with Patton and Roman. While he was still sceptical about Anxiety’s motives, for now he would focus on getting back to his two friends. He would try see Anxiety’s motives from Patton’s far more optimistic point of view, and hope that the the three heroes had gained an ally, however unlikely that may be. 

… 

Patton started when he heard a knock on the door. Having taken the day off work, he had spent the whole day and all of the previous night trying to figure out how to find Logan. Roman, who was also a nervous wreck, though he refused to admit it, had tried to convince Patton to lie down because ‘You look terrible!’. Patton, however, had refused, his mind too busy conjuring up horrific images of all the things that could have happened to his friend. 

Once Roman had returned from work, the two had sat across from each other and tried to work out what to do. Unfortunately, neither of them could stop their eyes drifting towards Logan’s usual seat, despairing at the fact that the man wasn't there and secretly hoping every time they looked that he might be. 

Patton slowly stood up and wandered over to the door, before fumbling around for the keys and unlocking the door. 

“Morality, are you okay? You have bags under your eyes, and your eyes are red! You look extremely unwell. ”

Patton almost fell over in shock. Of all the people he expected to be outside the door, Logan and Anxiety were certainly on the list. 

“Logic? Oh my goodness, you're okay!” Patton squealed, before tackling Logan in a rib crushing hug. “But I don't understand? How are you here?”

“Anxiety let me out. Although his motives are questionable, so it would be best if you didn't-”

Logan’s warning was ignored as Patton rushed past him and flung his arms around Anxiety, causing the villain to groan in pain. 

“Oh I'm so sorry, I forgot you were injured!” Patton quickly placed his hand on Anxiety’s shoulder and smiled as he saw the villain begin to relax as Patton healed his stomach. 

“Um… Thanks, I guess-”

“It's the least I could do!” Patton grinned, before hugging Anxiety again. 

Logan and Roman watched, uncertain of exactly what they were meant to do. While neither of them really trusted Anxiety, there was little they could do when Patton had quite literally latched onto the villain the way that he had. 

… 

After Morality had hugged everyone at least four times, and Logic had explained what had happened, Virgil found himself sitting in the bed of a small room that was apparently used if one of the heroes’ families stayed over. It seemed as though the three of them had felt that he was too dangerous to not keep watch over, although Morality had ensured him that they were ‘just looking out for you’. Not that it really mattered. 

The villain slowly removed his phone from one do the pockets in his jeans and rang the single contact in the phone.   
“Well?” 

“Everything went exactly as you predicted.”

“Perfect. Are you with them now?”

“Yes.”

“You've done well, Virgil. Or at least, as well as can be expected. While you are with them I want you to obtain as much information about the three of them as possible, is that understood?”

“Yes, of course, I-”

Virgil sighed as Deceit ended the call. It may not be what he wanted to be doing, but if Deceit said he had to find out some information about the morons that they had been fighting for two years, Virgil wasn't going to complain. 

After all, it couldn't be that hard. He already had Morality wrapped around his fingers, and Princey was probably his only real problem. What could possibly go wrong?


	8. Chapter 8

“Anxiety…” Virgil’s eyelids fluttered slightly as he heard someone calling him, before he groaned and buried himself under his pillow. Suddenly he jolted awake as someone began to bang on his door. 

“Anxie-” Virgil yanked open the door and glared at the idiot who had woken him up at a time that was definitely to early. 

“What the fuck, Princey?!”

“Finally! Not only do you look like a corpse, but you apparently sleep like one as well!”

“Fuck you.” Virgil muttered as he pushed past the overdramatic hero and followed the smell of food into the kitchen. 

“Anxiety! We were just going to have breakfast! Come and join us.” Virgil glanced at the extremely over-enthusiastic Morality warily before reluctantly taking a seat. 

Of all the places the villain had imagined ending up, eating pancakes with the three people he had been trying to kill for the last three years certainly wasn't one of them. Or at least it hadn't been until Deceit had informed Virgil of his amazing plan a few days ago. Now Virgil was stuck with the physical embodiment of happiness, an annoyingly suspicious nerd, and… Creativity. The third didn't really need a description. He was just… Virgil almost groaned out loud at the thought of having to spend time around the ridiculous, overdramatic, arrogant dick who seemed to think that he was perfect and could do no wrong. 

Deceit basically wanted information on all of them. He didn't just want to kill them, he wanted to ‘destroy’ them. Virgil had always felt that Deceit was being a bit extra with the whole revenge thing. However, Deceit was the clever one, and so Virgil just had to trust that the plan made sense, just not to him. 

… 

After breakfast, Logic and Morality had left to go to work, although of course Logic had given Morality a very stern look when he had tried to say more, leaving Virgil without a clue as to what the two did for a living. This unfortunately meant that he was left alone with the worst of the three. Virgil had originally planned to just stay in his room all day and make use of his phone and headphones, which thankfully he had managed to take with him. However, Princey had other plans.

“Logic said that you shouldn't be left by yourself whenever possible, so you have to stay out here.”

“I don't have to do anything, Princey.” He had growled, but given the amount of effort arguing with Princey always took, he settled with dragging his feet to the kitchen, jumping up onto the kitchen counter and shoving his headphones on, glowering at the hero all the while. 

The hero glared back at him before turning on the TV, purposely raising the volume to maximum. Virgil almost threw his phone at the idiot in frustration. 

After attempting to listen to his music and failing due to the incredibly high volume of the TV, Virgil sighed and began to focus instead on what was going on on the screen. Noticing that it was a Disney movie, and he actually enjoyed watching those, Virgil decided he had better things to do then just sit still doing nothing, and began slowly inching closer and closer to the TV screen. 

Finally reaching the sofa and chairs surrounding the TV, Virgil sat down and began to relax and enjoy the movie, until Creativity gave a rather high pitched screech, causing him to jump. 

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

Virgil sighed. He was not in the mood to do this with the hero. “Simple. I, too, am a Disney fan.”

Before Virgil could say anything else the room was filled with the Prince’s extremely obnoxious laugh.

“You?!” He spluttered incredulously while still laughing. Virgil resisted punching the idiot in the face. 

“What? Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Disney movies are the embodiment of goodness and purity, something you would know nothing about!” 

Virgil found himself with a lot more anger than he knew he should have in the current situation. The Prince wasn't wrong in his assessment, Virgil didn't know a lot about ‘goodness and purity’, but it wasn't as though his single personality trait was being a villain. He could like more than just killing people and plotting evil schemes. He wasn't a one-dimensional villain from a kid's film, and Creativity was even more of an idiot then Virgil had previously assumed if he thought that Virgil being a villain meant that he couldn't even enjoy a fucking film because it wasn't evil enough. And not to mention the Prince had been totally wrong about Disney being all ‘goodness and purity’ anyway. 

“Well you must not be watching the same movies then, ‘cause the movies I know have much more sinister undertones.” Virgil scowled as the Prince gave him an indignant look.  
“Come on, Princey, you must sense it. I'm just trying to make sure that you're alert to all the messages in those films, whether they were intentional or not.” 

Virgil smirked at the Prince’s face, and the way he was holding his hands over his chest in horror. Who knew that all he had needed to say to get a rise out of the hero was to tell him the unpleasant truths of his beloved Disney films. 

… 

When Patton got home, he was not surprised when he heard shouting coming from nearby the TV. He was however, a lot more surprised by what was being said. 

“OH COME ON! He came clean in the end! He even freed the genie!”

“Yeah he did. But not before LYING AND DECEIVING-”

“OH-”

“his way-”

“FOR-”

“right-”

“CRYING-”

“into-”

“OUT-”

“the castle-”

“LOUD!!”

“... and getting the Princess.”

“What’s going on, kiddos?”

“Oh hey, Pa- er, Morality. We were just, um…” Roman trailed off sheepishly. 

“Discussing…” Anxiety added in. 

“Yeah! Discussing, some, er…”

“Stuff!”

Roman turned around, glaring at Anxiety. “Seriously?! Stuff?! That's the best you could come up with?” He whispered furiously. 

“Fuck you, Princey. Like you were coming up with anything better. I thought you were meant to be the creative one.”

Patton slowly inched away from the pair and began to make dinner as carefully as possible, trying desperately not to make anything explode again. Patton had tried suggesting that someone else try to make this particular meal. However, Roman was more clueless in a kitchen than a camel that had somehow found itself at the North Pole, and Logan’s attempts at cooking had ended in a worse state than the Great Bacon Disaster of 2016. Patton had therefore found himself stuck with the job. 

Eventually Anxiety had walked away from Roman, saying goodbye with a rather rude use of his middle finger, and walked over to Patton. 

“Um… Hey.”

“Hey there, kiddo. What are you up to?”

“Well, um… Logic said that I should be around one of you as much as possible. And since there is no way in hell I'm going to spend another second with that DICK”, here Anxiety raised his voice to ensure that Roman could hear him, to which the man had yelled back ‘still don't like you’, “I thought I could spend some time with you.”

Patton beamed. “I would love that, kiddo. Why don't you help me with dinner?”

The man had reluctantly began to prepare the spaghetti, causing Patton to smile once again and turn back to preparing the bolognese. 

… 

By the time Logan had arrived and they had all sat down for dinner, Virgil had decided that his day had contained way more social interaction then he had wanted it to. Once he had finally been allowed to go into his room, he breathed a sigh of relief. He was getting annoyed with all the stupid rules that the three heroes were implementing. Why couldn't they just trust him?! 

Of course they were right not to, given that he wasn't on their side, but his job would be a lot easier if he didn't have to restrict everything that he did and force him to be around them the whole day. Even at dinner, he had tried to avoid conversation and had instead found himself constantly being dragged back in by Morality. It was getting hard trying to be Anxiety all the time, when he just wanted to be Virgil, and not have to worry about Deceit’s stupid plan. 

He scowled down at the phone on his lap, staring angrily at the seven texts that Deceit had sent him. He was doing what Deceit wanted, but it wasn't like he could get Deceit information with a snap of his fingers. If Deceit wanted information that badly, he should have carried his plan out himself. 

Virgil couldn't even leave his fucking room, thanks to Princey shoving a chest of drawers in front of his door every night. 

Virgil sighed, as his mind replayed the hero’s mutterings. 

‘Still don't like you.’

Well obviously, it wasn't as if Virgil was surprised. Yes, they had had a debate about Disney. Yes, at one point Princey had even conceded that Virgil had some good points and Virgil had done the same to him. But that didn't mean they were friends, and it didn't mean that the Prince would ever like someone like him. 

‘Still don't like you.’

So why did thinking about it hurt so much?


	9. Chapter 9

“Virgil! Your father has had to ask you to pass the potatoes three times, and you still haven't done anything. Take off your headphones and engage with the rest of the family.”

Virgil sighed and rolled his eyes, before slowly and deliberately removing his headphones from his head, glaring at his mother all the while. He then picked up the bowl of potatoes on the table and threw it down in front of his father with a resounding thud. 

“Dramatic, much?”. His brother raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Says the guy who is about to go to drama school”, Virgil retorted, sticking his tongue out at his older brother. 

“You think I’m dramatic.” He said, before reaching out and grabbing Virgil’s phone. “You were just listening to Welcome to the Black Parade, for God's sake!”

“Yeah, well you once attacked someone with a sword when they tried to quit the school play!”

“It was two weeks before the opening night. The attack was justified!”

“Oh of course, your highness, my mistake. As our Lord and Savior, you can of course do no wrong. Everything you do is justified. ” 

As the perfect child, Virgil was pretty sure that his brother would never be blamed for anything. And he meant anything. Hell, if his brother decided to destroy half the fucking planet, his parents would probably say that he had a good reason. Or just pretend that it didn't happen. Or blame it on Virgil. They liked doing that.

“Virgil!” His father exclaimed. “You know that is not the case. And can you not at least try to get along with your brother? He's leaving tomorrow, and yet you've been arguing with him all day.” 

Virgil gritted his teeth, trying to avoid reminding his father that it was not him that usually started any arguments between the two brothers. 

“It’s fine, Dad. Don't worry about it. I'm sure Virgil didn't mean-”

“Don't bother”, Virgil sighed. “I'm done anyway.”

He picked up his phone and headphones and began to return to his room, before he did something else wrong. So basically before he did anything. 

“Virgil! You're brother is leaving first thing tomorrow! You really aren't going to-”

“Bye! Have fun! I'll come visit!” Virgil sang, smiling at his brother as over-enthusiastically as he could, before doing a dramatic bow and retreating to his room. It wasn't like the two of them had ever really gotten along anyway, and his brother would enjoy his last few hours at home more when it was just him and his adoring parents. 

Of course, Virgil never did go and visit his brother, and was always out of the house when his brother came to visit. Not that it was anything personal. It wasn't his brother that he was trying to avoid, after all. Virgil had just never felt that seeing his brother was worth having to be in the same room as the assholes who called themselves his parents, but never seemed to act like it. 

… 

Virgil woke up in shock. He hadn't thought about his family in years, and yet here he was waking up from a dream about the three of them. He had always found that it hurt too much, thinking about all of them, and so Virgil usually found himself using the healthiest coping mechanism there is, namely burying all memories of them away and refusing to even think about them. 

However, given the fact that he didn't have much else to do, Virgil mused that it would be interesting to consider how it had all started. 

The first time Virgil had realised that he had powers, he had been twelve. He had been punched in the face by one of the many assholes who went to his school, Virgil seemed to recall that the boy’s name had been Richard, and the shadows surrounding the both of them had flung the boy away from him. Virgil had then ran home in fear. 

While he had not been a stranger to people with powers, Virgil had seen the look of fear that Richard had given him, and knew that that was not the usual reaction. He had seen the way people treated people with abilities. They treated them with respect and admiration. They saw them as heroes. 

But Richard hadn't treated Virgil like a hero, he had been scared. And although Virgil was under no delusion that Richard was a good person, he hadn't felt like a hero taking down a bad guy. Because Richard had looked like a victim, not a villain. He had looked scared and small, and Virgil had hurt him and Richard had been scared and he had looked at him like he was evil and he had screamed and he had run away from Virgil like Virgil was someone that should be run away from and… 

People with powers were meant to be respected and admired, not feared. And so Virgil had come to the conclusion that his powers must be wrong, and that he must be wrong. He had tried to forget about his powers, and refused to use them even when the people at each if the schools he ended up in tried to hurt him. Because if he hurt them, if he lashed out, then he became the bad guy. And Virgil refused to be the bad guy. He just refused. 

The first time his parents saw him use his shadows was a few weeks after his brother left. He had been angry, yelling at his parents after receiving yet another lecture on why he would never be good enough and why he couldn't be more like his brother, and his shadows had lunged at his father and threw him across the kitchen. 

If Virgil’s parents had needed any more persuasion that he was not the son they wanted, and most definitely didn't belong in the family, then this had most certainly done the job. No matter how much Virgil had promised that he never used his abilities, and that he didn't want the power that he had, his parents had been more then happy to label him as the dark to his brother's light, and refused to change their view of him. 

And so he had shut himself in his room and tried to ignore them every time they screamed at him. He had always told himself that the people at his schools were wrong about him, because what did they know? They couldn't determine is he was good or evil, and if they thought he was the bad guy, then they had to be wrong becuase he wasn't evil. But his parents telling him he was, that was a different story. If everyone believed that Virgil was an evil villain with no conscious or humanity, then maybe they were right? And if they were right, what was to stop him from becoming such a thing? 

A few weeks before Virgil’s parents had kicked him out, he had been stopped by a guy in the street. The man had said that his name was Deceit, which was of course weird enough, but then he had told Virgil that he knew about his abilities. Given that Virgil’s parents had gone to great length to make sure that no one else had found out about the apparently incredibly evil powers Virgil possessed, it had been somewhat of a shock to have a stranger come up to him and mention it in passing. 

Now, Virgil knew that Deceit must have shapeshifted into him and sensed the powers he had, but at the time he had been confused and slightly scared. The last few people who had discovered his abilities, namely his parents and the few people who had seem him use them at his old school, hadn't been too thrilled. Another person knowing about them therefore didn’t exactly bode well. However, Deceit had told him that his power wasn't something to be feared, and that if Virgil had any questions, or needed any help, then he should call him. Given that this was the nicest thing anyone had said to him in years, Virgil had found himself almost eager to take the man’s number, even if he hadn't really believed that what the man had said had been true. 

When Virgil had found himself standing outside his home with nowhere to go a few weeks later, he had opened his phone and gone to his contacts. For a moment, his thumb had hovered over his brother’s number. His brother had his own place now, so maybe he would allow Virgil to stay for a few weeks, until Virgil found somewhere else to go? Virgil had found himself imagining it. He hadn't seen him since he had left for college, having been avoiding the inevitable event of his parents pointing out just how shit he was in comparison to his brother. Maybe his brother would be happy to see him? Maybe he would be willing to help him

Virgil had then laughed at the thought, and had selected Deceit’s number hoping the man would be true to his word. 

Three years had then passed and now here he was, under what was basically house arrest with his three worst enemies. 

… 

“Anxiety? Are you awake?”

“Mhm…” Virgil groaned. 

He heard the door open and Logic appeared in the door frame. 

“The other two are at work. However, I am not, because Morality seems to believe that I should take some time off, in order to give me time to relax.” Virgil smirked at just how repulsed Logic looked at the idea. “I believe it would be best if you got up now, in order to avoid messing up your sleep schedule.”

Virgil reluctantly got out of bed and headed over to the door. As delightful as it was to reminisce about your family and how much they hate you, he had a job to do. And he really didn't want to know what would happen if he wasn't able to give Deceit what he wanted.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So almost 1000 people have read this now and I CAN'T EVEN. Thank you for everyone who has been following this and leaving comments and stuff, I really appreciate it!! Anyway, enjoy chapter 10 :)

After breakfast the two sat down on the sofa. Logic had opened his laptop and Virgil had gone on his phone. After the two had sat through a few minutes of silence, Virgil internally groaned. He had hoped that the two of them would begin a discussion of some kind, as there was no way Virgil would be able to find out information about the three heroes if he couldn't even talk to them (of course snooping around their home would have been a lot more preferable to socialisation, but because of the fact that they were constantly watching him it would be a hard task to accomplish).

Unfortunately, it had quickly become clear to Virgil that Logic was not going to start a conversation with him. He therefore had reluctantly taken matters into his own hands. 

“So… How’s it going?”

Not the best start, but in fairness he hadn't had a lot of practice in the art of socialising, due to the fact that he absolutely hated it and no one ever wanted to talk to him. 

“Satisfactory. You?”

“Good, yeah…”

“...”

Virgil had to refrain from sighing out loud. It was clear that Logic had possibly even less social skills then he did, which normally would have been a good thing as it meant Virgil wouldn't have to talk. However, right now he really needed the two of them to talk. Preferably for a very long time in which Logic told Virgil everything that he needed to know. 

…

Having spent the last fifteen minutes going through all the conversation starters that he had learnt several years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to make a friend, Virgil found himself stuck. Why was it so hard to get information out of these people?! 

It wasn't exactly surprising that none of them trusted him, but the fact they hadn't even slipped up and called one of the others by their real names instead of their superhero names was ridiculous. He would have thought that at least Morality, and probably Princey as well, would have made a mistake by now. But the three of them seemed determined to make his life difficult. 

After another half hour of silence, Logic had suddenly slammed down the lid of his laptop, causing Virgil to jump. 

“Morality had informed me that I should befriend you in order to make you feel more like part of the group.”

“Ok…”, Virgil muttered, refraining from mentioning that he really wasn't a part of the group. 

“And by mention, I mean that in the last forty minutes I have received no less than sixteen emails on the subject. Therefore I propose that we socialise in some way. Tell me, can you play chess?”

…

“You are a lot better at this game then I had originally anticipated, Anxiety.”

Anxiety looked up. “Is that a, um… Compliment? Or an insult?”

“How would it be… Well I apologise if I caused offence. I was merely commenting that I was impressed at your skill. Although it isn't as though I have a lot of other people who are highly skilled to compare you with.”

Anxiety snorted. “Yeah, I can imagine. From what I can see of Princey’s skills in strategy I can guess that he isn't exactly a chess master.”

Logan smirked. “Well you would be right about that. He once spent twenty minutes explaining to me that I actually had the rules wrong, as the restrictions about which squares the Knight piece can move to are ‘unjust, unlawful and clear discrimination against the most noble piece on the board!’”

Logan sighed at the memory of that particular night. The three heroes’ conflicting interests made it hard enough to come up with a game as it was, but due to Patton having to work late, Roman and Logan had been left without a mediator to help them reach a compromise. Twelve rounds of rock-paper-scissors later and Logan had chosen chess, given that due to there being three of them it was never chosen for game night. 

Predictably, it had ended in catastrophe. Patton had entered the flat two hours later and found Roman rolling on the floor screaming, with Logan standing over him yelling ‘I didn't touch your nose you big wuss!’. 

“What about Morality?”

Logan sighed again. “He can play well enough, but his aggravating need to turn everything into a pun makes him a rather irritating opponent. The last time we played, he told me that he once saw two chess masters in a hotel lobby bragging about past wins. Do you know what he said then?”

“Er… No.” Anxiety murmured, feigning sympathy but clearly trying to hold back laughter at Logan’s exasperated tone. 

“He said that they were chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.” 

Anxiety snorted, causing Logan to raise an eyebrow. 

“Oh come on, nerd. You have to admit that was funny.”

“It most definitely is not.” Logan spluttered in indignation. “I do not see the point of word play such as this. It is most certainly not amusing.”

“Well, seeing you getting so annoyed certainly is.”

Logan looked at Anxiety in an exasperated manner. The two sat in silence for a minute. 

“Checkmate.” Logan stated calmly. 

“What?! Oh for fucks sake!” 

Logan rolled his eyes. “Must you act so dramatically? Yelling ridiculously in such a fashion is pointless!”

Anxiety glared at the board so furiously that Logan half thought it would burst into flames, if for the fact that it was indeed possible.

“Your mum is pointless!” The villain muttered. 

“That is preposterous!” Logan threw back. 

“Your mum is preposterous!” Anxiety retorted. 

Logan glared at Anxiety. “You've never even met my mother.”

“And yet I still know that she is preposterous and pointless…”

“FALSEHOOD!” Logan yelled, causing Anxiety to leap from his chair like a started cat. 

“Holy shit! And you think I'm dramatic?”

“You think you are not?” Logan retorted. 

“hissssssssssssssss…”

“I’m sorry did you just hiss at me?”

“I do that when I start reaching my limit with stupid questions. I mean come on. You think I am bad? I thought you'd played chess with Princey?”

“Quite honestly I find both you and Princey to be a little too… extra.”

Anxiety raised his eyebrows. “Now there is a word I never thought I'd hear come out of your mouth.”

Logan smiled proudly and produced his stack of cards. “Vocab words. I've been studying.”

“I don't know whether to laugh at you or be impressed. I'm going to settle with feeling insulted at being compared to Princey. I mean honestly he is such a…”

“Savage?”

“Wait why are you complimenting him?”

“I'm saying he acts like an aggressive, brainless savag- Oh no, is that another contemporary slang word I have to learn?”

“It is.” Anxiety whispered. 

Logan sighed. “Okay. I cannot keep up with these.”

He grabbed a blank card and a scribbled the word down, making a mental note to look it up later. 

“Well, now that you seemed to have calmed down somewhat, shall we play again?” Logan asked. Anxiety shuffled awkwardly in his seat. 

“Er… Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

…

After another three games, two of which Logic won and one of which Virgil won (which had lead to Virgil doing a happy dance that he would never admit to having done and Logic prescribing him a figurative ‘chill pill’) the two had sat down in contented silence. 

Eventually Logic had spoken. 

“It's interesting.”

“What?” Virgil asked as he took off his headphones, curious as to what the hero was about to say. 

“Now that we’re at a little bit of a stand still, I finally feel a sense of peace in this household.”

Virgil smiled. It was true in the fact that Logic was no longer glancing at him with suspicious looks every ten seconds. He knew Deceit would laugh at him for even thinking it, but he felt as if maybe, just maybe, he had made a friend today.

If the relationship that he had built today with Logic was indeed a friendship. He wasn't exactly very experienced in that particular area. 

“I guess?” He replied cautiously, wary of saying something wrong and ruining the ‘sense of peace’. 

“The atmosphere is calm. The air is tranquil and it finally feels like we are at a point of higher, sophisticated thinking.” Logic said, smiling while adjusting his glasses as he said ‘sophisticated’. Virgil smiled too, acknowledging that Logic’s statement was an accurate one. Or at least it would be until….

Princey flung open the front door, causing Virgil to almost fall out off the sofa in surprise. He groaned. Of course he had come back just as Virgil had begun to enjoy himself. 

“I'm back, did you miss me?” The hero shouted with a beaming grin. 

“Your mom misses you!” Logic had yelled, much to Virgil’s shock and enjoyment. His happiness was increased when he saw the startled look on Princey’s face. 

“I'm sorry. While that was savage… it was a little extra.” Logic then said, adjusting his glasses once again. 

“What did you do to him?” Princey turned around to stare at him, evidently still unsettled by the whole encounter. Virgil merely smirked, tried not to laugh out loud and placed his headphones back on his head. 

Just as he began to listen to his music again he saw Morality enter behind Princey. 

“Logic! Now where did you learn such childish humor.” The man had said, before shaking his head and tutting. 

Virgil snorted again, before settling back into his music. As far as days in his life went, this one hadn't been too bad, he thought with a smile. It hadn't been too bad at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the line "I didn't touch your nose you big wuss" must be credited to my amazing friend @theotherella on tumblr who edits this fanfiction for me. She said this particular phrase to one of my other friends and it's still an iconic line amongst my friends to this day. But yeah, she is awesome :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy chapter 11! And see if you can spot the Heathers quote :)

Once Patton said goodbye to Logan and Roman the following morning, he hesitantly knocked on Anxiety’s door. Given that it was just going to be him and Anxiety, he had hope that he would be able to help make Anxiety feel more welcome, and hopefully establish a friendship with him. After all, no matter what the others said and no matter what he had done in the past, Anxiety had rescued Logan from Deceit. He couldn't understand why the other two couldn't just be nicer to him. 

“Are you awake yet, kiddo?”

From inside the room he heard Anxiety groan. “Well I am now.”

“Oh! Sorry if I woke you up. Why don't you come out and have some breakfast?”

He heard shuffling from inside the room, before an extremely dishevelled Anxiety appeared in the doorway. Patton grinned at how cute the young man looked, before making his way to the kitchen, piling pancakes onto a plate and placing them down in front of Anxiety with a flourish and an encouraging smile. 

“Er… Thanks.”

“No problem, kiddo. So how are you doing? Are you getting along with the others?”

“What are you, my dad?” Anxiety retorted, giving him a half-hearted glare. 

Patton had to force himself not to squeal at just how precious Anxiety was being. It felt as though there was an extremely jumpy but none the less incredibly adorable black kitten in desperate need of a hug sitting in his kitchen. Unfortunately Patton had a feeling that said kitten wouldn't appreciate the hug as much as Patton would, but that didn't mean he didn't need one. Logan and Roman may still be suspicious of the sweet and sour misunderstood shadowling, but Patton had already adopted him as his own. 

Patton gave Anxiety his ‘disapproving dad look’. “Am I going to get an answer?”

“Um… Yeah, sure. Whatever. They've been fine, I guess.”

“You guess…” Patton said kindly, trying to prompt the poor, little, anxious baby into opening up to him. 

“Well, Princey has always been a bit of a dick, so-” 

“Language! Sorry kiddo, you were saying?”

“Um, well yeah. Logic is nice though, I mean I think so. I mean he was nice yesterday. Um, but yeah. And Princey is… ” 

Patton nodded at him to continue. “Look, it's nothing in particular, he is just a bit of a d…” Here Anxiety trailed off as Patton turned his ‘dissaproving dad look’ on him once again. 

“A bit annoying.”

Patton frowned. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“What? No!” Anxiety practically screamed, throwing him an incredulous look. “Seriously, dude, you take this dad thing way too far.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Patton muttered, before he hurriedly turned around and went back to cleaning up from breakfast. If Anxiety didn't want to talk to him, then that was fine. Logan and Roman found him annoying enough, so it wasn't exactly a shock that Anxiety found him overbearing as well. Patton sniffed and tried to subtly wipe his eyes. 

“Holy shit! Are you crying?”

“...No…”

“You know, for someone who goes by Morality all the time, you really shouldn't lie so much.”

Patton blushed. “I don't… Lying is wrong.”

“So, you why are you crying? Was it something I said. Did I… offend you? Because I'm sorry if I did. I didn't mean to make you upset.”

“No it's fine, don't worry about it, kiddo.”

“No, seriously, I… Look, I know that the other two don't always take you seriously, and I get the feeling that they don't appreciate you as much as they should. But just so you know, of the three of you you've definitely been the nicest to me, and I definitely like you the best.”

Pattons face lit up, and he bounded over to Anxiety and gave him a huge hug. The young man tensed up slightly, but did not pull away, much to Patton’s thrill. 

“Okay. You can, er, let go know.” Anxiety said about five minutes into the hug. 

Patton withdrew, happy that mission ‘hug the adorable, angsty bean in his kitchen’ had been a success. 

“So, tell me kiddo. Have you ever watched Steven Universe?”

“Um… No, I don't think so.”

Patton gasped, before grabbing Anxiety by the arm and practically dragging him towards the TV. Once the two had sat down on the sofa, Patton smiled as he watched Anxiety begin to relax and let his guard down from out of the corner of his eye. Patton didn't care what Logan and Roman thought about Anxiety’s intentions, he loved his dark strange son. 

… 

All in all, Virgil found himself enjoying his day watching Steven Universe with Morality, even when the hero tried to get him to sing with him every time the theme music played. However, he couldn't help feel that he should have done more earlier. Realising that he had made Morality cry had hurt him a lot more then he cared to admit. And while he had tried to make Morality feel better, which Virgil would never admit to having done, Morality’s dramatic mood swing didn't make it seem as though he was actually okay, just that he was pretending to be. 

Virgil knew he shouldn't care, and that he should just leave it alone. And he really didn't want to have go into an in depth conversation about feelings. But he had to at least try. 

“Hey, er…Morality.”

“Yep?” The hero turned around and tilted his head questionably. 

“Why do you act so happy all the time?”

Morality’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you just always seem happy.”

The hero smiled at him. “Well that's because I am happy all the time, silly!”

“If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn't be a human being. You'd be a game-show host.”

Morality’s face fell. “I…”

“Listen I'm not judging you or anything, okay, I get it. It's nicer to just be happy all the time and not think of all the shi- bad things in the world. But you shouldn't just pretend to be happy because that's what everyone else expects you to be. You are allowed to feel sad sometimes.”

Morality looked straight at him. “I… Thank you, kiddo.”

Virgil looked away, his face turning red in embarrassment. “Yeah… Well, um… Whatever.”

Morality leaned over and hugged Virgil again, causing Virgil to awkwardly pat the hero on the back in an attempt to show his appreciation but not have to actually participate in the hug. 

“Well…” Virgil said, trying to slip away from Morality’s incredibly enthusiastic hug. “I'm gonna go to my room now. I mean it's almost the end of the day so… Yeah.”

“Okay, sure! Goodnight, kiddo.”

“Um… Thanks for today.”

Morality smiled at him. “Not a problem, kiddo. I really enjoyed spending time with you.”

Now that was a statement that Virgil was very much not used to hearing. “Same. Well, goodnight Morality.”

“Patton.”

“What?”

“I'm, just, my name is Patton. Don't worry you don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to yet. I just, wanted to tell you.”

“Okay. Um… Goodnight, Patton.”

… 

Once he was alone in his room, Virgil slowly opened his phone and turned to his messages. He quickly scrolled up, checking everything Deceit had sent him. While all different, the general message was ‘find out who they are so I can kill all of their family and friends and make them suffer (or some other generic evil villain statement) or I will kill you instead you stupid piece of shit (or some other generic evil villain threat)’. So Virgil was getting the feeling that Deceit really wasn't in a very good mood.

Well, at least Virgil actually had something to tell Deceit today. He doubted Deceit would have been too pleased with ‘Logic likes chess and Princey likes Disney films’, and so had kept quiet over the last few days. Hence the series of increasingly threatening messages he was receiving. But now, thankfully, he had something to say. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. 

It wasn't hard, he just had to type out a few little words. Then why was it so hard? It wasn't like Deceit knowing Morality’s name was Patton would hurt Patton in some way. Unless of course he found out who Patton was and killed everyone Patton cared about. But it was just a name. There shouldn't be a problem with telling Deceit. It was a fucking name. 

But Virgil couldn't help but think about today. About how Patton trusted and believed in him, even though it was stupid to and both of the others he'd warned him not to. About how kind he had been. Virgil couldn't remember the last time someone had trusted him, or the last time someone had cared about him like Patton did. 

Slowly, he found himself putting down the phone. It wouldn't last, it never did, but he would enjoy this misplaced affection without screwing it up by betraying Patton’s trust for as long as he could. Patton would eventually realise just how pathetic he was and leave him alone like everyone else did, but until then maybe they could be… friends? 

It wasn't like Morality’s name was that important anyway. Deceit didn't need to know. And so he wouldn't know.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left comments and to everyone who is following this. Your support really means a lot to me. Anyway, enjoy chapter twelve :)

Virgil woke to his phone buzzing, alerting him to an incoming call, causing his stomach to fill up with dread. Reluctantly, he picked up his phone and accepted the call. 

Wary of the other three hearing him through the door, he tried to keep his voice down as he began to speak. “Yes?”

“Hello, Virgil. I do hope I'm not interrupting anything.” Deceit replied. 

Virgil felt his insides turn cold. “Wh-What do you mean?”

Deceit’s voice was soft and full of danger. “Well you must be spending an awful lot of time with Creativity, Logic and Morality, because I haven't received any form of communication from you in days. I trust you have something to tell me?”

“Um, not really.”

“Is that so? Are you lying to me, Virgil? Because I am going to be very angry if you are.”

Virgil tried to remain calm. “I-I’m not lying, I-I swear.”

Deceit sighed. “So what you're saying is that you're just extremely useless.”

“Well, I-”

“Shut up, Virgil. Either you are lying to me because you are too much of an idiot to carry out rational decisions, or you are too much of a failure to complete even the simplest of tasks. Either way, I have given you one little thing to do and you still haven't fucking done it. Everytime I ask you to do something I think that maybe you'll actually succeed this time, but you seem determined to fail at pretty much everything life throws at you.”

Virgil felt his eyes begin to well up with tears. 

“So which is it, Virge?” Deceit taunted. “Are you an idiot or a failure?”

Before Virgil could process the problems with what he was about to say, he found himself blurting out “I'm not either!” 

Virgil flinched at Deceit’s cold and sarcastic chuckle. “Is that so, Virgil? Well isn't that cute. Tell me, is this newfound confidence of yours something I should be blaming on Morality?”

“No…” Well, yes. Between finding out Patton’s name and being told that ‘I really enjoyed spending time with you’, Virgil had found that there had been a smile on his face for most of the previous night while he had scrolled through tumblr. Not that he was going to tell Deceit that. 

“Well I am so glad.” Deceit whispered into the phone. “Because it's not like any of them care about you, Virgil. Or should I say Anxiety. Because that's who you are to them. You are nothing but a villain to them, and you always will be. Never forget that.”

Virgil sighed in relief as Deceit hung up the phone, before almost collapsing on the ground. He felt almost tired after his interaction with Deceit. Conversations with the villain always left him feeling rather drained. He had assumed that was just him being an antisocial mess, but that definitely wasn't how he had felt with Logic and Patton (Princey was a different story).

And now that he was thinking about it, he also never felt scared to talk to Patton, and he certainly never felt uncomfortable when talking to the hero.  
So why did he always feel like that with Deceit? That wasn't how you were meant to feel with a friend. 

Virgil slowly lifted himself up. Maybe he was just a bad friend, he reasoned, as he began to prepare for the day. After all, Deceit was his best friend. And only friend, he reminded himself. Because  
Deceit was right. The others only saw him as a villain. Right? 

‘I really enjoyed spending time with you.’

‘My name is Patton. Don't worry you don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to yet. I just, wanted to tell you.’

‘Now that we’re at a little bit of a stand still, I finally feel a sense of peace in this household’

Maybe he was just being stupid, but Patton had almost seemed to accept him over the past few days. And Logic certainly didn't hate him. So maybe Deceit was wrong. 

‘You are nothing but a villain to them, and you always will be.’

Deceit had sounded so sure, though. Virgil sighed and tried to keep the thoughts out of his head. Right now he would just focus on getting ready for another day. He could worry about this another time. 

But he couldn't help but listen to the tiny voice in the back of his head that kept reminding him that he was meant to be doing something here. And he really didn't want to know what Deceit would do if he didn't do it. 

… 

When Patton opened the door to take him to breakfast, Virgil found himself slightly disappointed to see the other two heroes at the table. As much as he had enjoyed spending time with Logic, he would much rather another day just with Patton. Especially as it seemed Princey was going to be here today, no doubt making snide comments about him and calling him insulting nicknames. Although Virgil had to admit that some of them were very clever. 

Once seated at the table, he smiled as Patton placed a waffle in front of him.

“Thanks, Patton.” He said absentmindedly, as he began to eat his breakfast. He then almost dropped his fork as Creativity jumped about three feet into the air. 

“Patton?!” The hero said with an extremely high pitched tone of voice. “Wh-Who’s that? We don't have any Pattons here.”

Patton giggled from his spot across the table. “That's me, silly.”

“Patton!” Creativity screamed. “You've blown your cover! You can't just reveal who you are in front of the enemy!!”

Virgil ignored the stab of hurt at the word ‘enemy’. It wasn't as though it was a false conclusion, after all. “I, er… I actually already knew.”

Princey whirled around to face him. “How?!”

“I told him yesterday.”

The other two heroes whirled round to face the third.

“What?!” Creativity screamed. 

“It's not that big of a deal, kiddo. I trust Anxiety and I decided I would prefer if he called me by my actual name. Or if he called me Dad.” Here Patton turned around to look at Virgil. 

“I'm not going to call you Dad.” Virgil muttered. 

Patton sighed. “Oh well. Worth a try, I suppose.”

Princey was still in a state of shock. “H-How c-could y-” He spluttered. “I mean h-how c-could you possibly trust hi… I don't understand, I-”

Logic sighed. “I think you are overreacting.”

“Overreacting?! Have you guys forgotten who this guy is?! He isn't some stray in desperate need of help who you can just adopt and welcome into the family. He's a supervillain! He's killed people! Lots of people! He's hurt us! He's tried to kill us! How can you guys just overlook this?!”

Patton looked at Creativity pleadingly. “B-But he r-rescued Logic.”

Princey scoffed. “No doubt some kind of evil plot to get close to us in order to take us down from the inside.”

Virgil found himself wishing that he could sink down into the floor and disappear.

“That's not true! Anxiety has been nothing but friendly ever since he arrived!” Patton spluttered. 

“Exactly!” Princey roared. “It's all an elaborate scheme to defeat us. That's what villains do, Patton! They trick you and they deceive you and they do evil things! Because, you know, they're evil.”

“He isn't evil!”

“If he isn't evil, why doesn't he trust you enough to tell you his name?”

Logic turned around to look at him. “That is a very good point. Why haven't you told us your name?

Virgil started to panic. What if they realised he was still working with Deceit because he didn't seem to trust them. Would they throw him out? Would they kill him? What would Deceit say? He would be so angry and Virgil would have failed him again and-

“Are you okay, kiddo?”

Virgil took a deep breathe. “I jus-” Virgil sighed. He could tell them his name, of course he could. But why bother? He has only ever going to be ‘Anxiety the evil supervillain’ to them anyway. “I mean, you haven't told me your name.”

“Fine, my name is Logan.”

Creativity screamed again. “W-What?! Great so now you trust him too?! I thought you were meant to be the smart one? He has clearly got you both under some kind of evil spel-”

“Anxiety’s ability is manipulating shadows.” Logan said dismissively. “What you are suggesting is impossible.”

Creativity growled. Logan turned around to look at Virgil . “So?”

“I-I…” There was nothing wrong with telling them his name. It would be easy. And then they would laugh at him because he had a stupid name and then probably continue to call him Anxiety anyway because he was just a villain to them and Deceit would laugh at him for trusting them and they were probably just trying to get him to slip up and admit to still working for Deceit so they could kill him and… 

“Anxiety?”

“Um, what? Oh yeah. No.”

Patton and Logan looked at him in confusion. 

“I mean you can't seriously expect me to open up to you after Princey just went on a five minute rant about how evil I am.”

Logan nodded. “Fair enough.”

Creativity spluttered. “W-What?! You can't just let him get away with that! You just told him your name and he didn't and-”

“Telling him my name gives Anxiety no obligation to tell me his. We did not agree to exchange names and I simply told him mine in order to demonstrate that I trust him somewhat. He did rescue me from Deceit after all.”

Princey looked livid. “Anxiety! A word.”

“Are you sure that's the best idea-” Patton began. 

“I'll be fine.” Virgil reassured the hero. 

“You'll be-. I'm the one being left alone with a supervillain!”

“At your own request.” Logan reminded him. 

… 

Once the two were alone, Princey spun around and glared at him. 

“You may have the others fooled with your whole turn to the good side thing, but I know better.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Could you get more cliche? I mean come on! The ‘everyone else may trust you but I don't and I've got my eye on you’ speech is so overdone.”

Princey glared at him. “You forget that I have been fighting you for two years now. And I know that there is no way someone like you could ever turn good. I will have my eye on you, and I'll be waiting and watching for you to make a mistake and reveal your true intentions. And when you do…”

Virgil snorted. “You'll what? Kill me?”

“I think you've forgotten who is the hero and who is the villain here. I'm not the one who kills people.”

“Really?” Virgil scoffed. “Because the scar of a stab wound on my stomach says otherwise.”

Creativity turned away, refusing to look Anxiety in the eye. “That was… A mistake.”

Virgil paused. “Was that an apology?”

“What?! Um…No! I'm just saying. It was an accident. I would never do something like that on purpose, I would never kill anyone. Because I am the hero.”

Virgil felt his anger rise again. Of course Princey hadn't been apologising. He would never stoop so low as to apologise to someone like Virgil. 

“Really?” Virgil spat, his voice dripping with malice. “So you've never killed anyone? You've obviously never heard of collateral damage. Every time a person dies during our fights it's blamed on me and Deceit, but it's not as though we directly killed every single one of those people. Most of the people who have died during our fights died because someone made a mistake. And by someone, it's as often one of you guys who causes a truck to swerve and hit someone or starts a fire as it is me or Deceit. Now granted we've definitely killed more then you have, given that we’re the bad guys, but don't think you're hands are entirely clean. You go around trying to act like you have the moral high ground, but don't think you haven't hurt people too. You are a human like everyone else, and humans make mistakes, and you have definitely made plenty of those. So don't give me all that bullshit about how you've never killed anyone because you are the hero, because you're wrong. You have killed people, and you are certainly not the hero. You are just a pathetic man with no real talents who found out that he had powers and decided to play at being the shining knight from fairytales. You aren't a hero, you're just a pretentious dick playing pretend, and hurting people in the process.”

And with that, Virgil shoved past Creativity and charged onto the sofa, before aggressively shoving his headphones on his head. Okay, maybe he could see why Logan had said he was a bit extra.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave me a comment telling me your thoughts :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that I haven't posted a new chapter in ages. I know where the story is going to go and everything I've just been struggling with exactly what to write to get there. Anyway I hope you enjoy.

Roman stormed back into the kitchen. 

“Logan! A word.” Roman yelled. “Er...please?” He added when Patton raised an eyebrow at him. 

Ignoring the villain who was currently shooting glares at him from the sofa, Roman dragged his friend into his bedroom and slammed the door.

“What the hell, Logan?!”

“You'll have to be more specific.” Logan replied, tilting his head. 

“I mean I get it with Patton, he will give his love to anyone who has been in his general vicinity for more than a few days, but I thought you were meant to be the logical one. I mean you can't actually trust him, can you?”

Logan sighed, which for some reason was something that he seemed to do a lot in his presence. Not that Roman could ever figure out why.

“I do not have complete faith in Anxiety, but I cannot argue with the facts, and him rescuing me as well as his behaviour since his arrival indicate that he is most likely on our side.”

“Most likely!” Roman exclaimed triumphantly. “So you don't completely trust him.”

“Yes.” Logan had looked at him in confusion. “I just said that. What about this aren't you getting?”

“But if you don't trust him why did you tell him your name and act like you did?”

“As I literally just said, which you would have known if you had actually paid attention, the majority of the facts point to Anxiety being on our side. And even if he isn't, it would be a lot easier to tell by talking to him then by glaring at him as though you are trying to set him on fire with your mind every time you see him.”

Roman had responded by directing said glare at the other hero, causing said hero to raise his eyebrows in disapproval. Their battle of wills was broken by Roman letting out a rather adorable little sneeze and therefore ending his glare, causing Logan to smirk in triumph. Roman found himself tempted to reenact a particular incident that had resulted in Logan having a broken nose and Patton putting Roman in time out, just to wipe the smug expression off Logan’s face. 

“Is this just your roundabout way of telling me to be nicer to him?” Roman muttered suspiciously. 

“I think you have me confused with Patton.”

“So you aren't asking me to be nicer to Anxiety?” Roman had said, crossing his arms. 

“No. I am suggesting that even if you still mistrust him it would be more beneficial for you to be less open about it.”

“Did Patton put you up to this?”

“No. ”

“Okay Microsoft Nerd. If you're sure. But if he is still working with Deceit, what do you think their plan is.”

“I have my theories. But there is one thing I know for sure. If Anxiety is still with Deceit, they have a plan that they are about to implement, in which they probably plan to kill all of us slowly and painfully. If Anxiety is indeed on our side, then Deceit will no doubt be extremely angry and will therefore probably be about to implement a plan that involves killing us and Anxiety slowly and painfully in order to extract revenge.”

Roman had stared at him. “So basically what you're saying is that no matter which side Anxiety’s on, we're all screwed.”

“I believe I phrased it better, but you're not wrong.”

Well, that was just great. 

… 

“Sooooo…” Patton began. “Now that it's just us two, what would you like to do today?”

Anxiety shrugged, looking slightly dejected. 

“Don't worry about what R-Princey said, kiddo. I trust you.”

Anxiety smiled at him. “Great. Yeah, um… That's great. Um… Thanks, I guess.”

“So, do you want to watch some more Steven Universe?”

“Dude, we watched like two seasons yesterday.”

“But there are almost five seasons in total!”

“You know what? Sure. Let's do this.”

Patton squealed. Not only had he know gained more time to bond with the angsty shadowling, he got to educate the poor bean on the wonders of the Crystal Gems. 

… 

When Logan heard the theme music of Steven Universe from the TV, he despaired that Patton seemed to have found yet another victim to inflict the cartoon upon. The amount of times it had been playing in the background as he tried to work or read had resulted in him having seen almost all of the show. Of course he didn't enjoy it, due to the extremely unrealistic nature of cartoons, but due to living with Roman and Patton he never seemed to be able to escape it.   
At least Anxiety had some common sense, unlike the other two. Although due to his apparent love of Disney and the recent exposure to Patton’s cartoons Logan wondered if he would need rescuing anytime soon. He couldn't afford to lose his one ally against the nonsensical behaviour of Patton and Roman. Especially when he genuinely liked him. 

Which was why Logan really hoped Anxiety wasn't working with Deceit. He couldn't deny that he was suspicious about Anxiety’s motives. But Anxiety felt almost like a friend. He was very different to Roman and Patton, which was quite a relief to Logan, and Logan actually enjoyed spending time with him.   
So maybe Roman was right, or maybe Patton was right, but Logan decided to just focus on the fact Deceit was going to try to kill them either way. Anxiety’s allegiance could be debated another time. 

… 

Patton looked over at his dark, strange son and smiled fondly. While he knew that he tended to give love to people very quickly, he hadn't been able to resist adopting the young man sitting next to him on the sofa. He had quickly handed over his trust and friendship to Anxiety after what he had done for Logan, but as he got to know Anxiety more and more he felt increasingly protective of him. While only there for a few days, Anxiety seemed to Patton to be the perfect addition to their group. He seemed to slot in perfectly, filling a place Patton didn't know needed to be filled. The other two just didn't quite realise it yet. 

Anxiety was now his child, and Patton was determined to fight anyone who tried to separate him from his son. This of course didn't get rid of the guilt Patton felt about his original treatment of his kiddo. 

While he had been with the others when they had confronted Anxiety and Deceit in the past, his powers limited how much he had been involved in the actual fighting, and so he had had little to no exposure to his kiddo before he had brought Logan back to him. However, Patton was ashamed at the fact that he had always been rather afraid of Anxiety even though he had never really known him, given the young man's uncaring attitude and habit of saying a lot of mean things to the three heroes. Not to mention Anxiety’s manipulation of shadows, which Patton had always feared. 

Now of course the more he got to know him the more guilt Patton felt. There he was calling himself the good guy, and at the same time seeing Anxiety as nothing more than a villain. And yet Anxiety had been anything but. He had only just begun to open up to him, but from the little Patton could see of the real Anxiety, he had found a sarcastic, witty, intelligent and incredibly insecure bean in need desperate need of protection and love. Both of which Patton was happy to provide like the great dad he was. 

But it pained Patton to know that he had never seen it before. He had only seen him as a villain. Which was exactly how Roman saw him now. 

Patton knew it would be hard for Anxiety and Roman of them to get along, due to them basically being rivals, but he wished the two of them could. He hated watching the two of them fight. It made him feel all kinds of bad. And what he saw during their arguments made him worry about Anxiety. He couldn't help but feel as though Roman’s words always hurt Anxiety a lot more than Roman intended them to. Patton knew first had that sometimes Roman or Logan could say something that they would dismiss as a quick insult but that the recipient could take to heart. And Patton didn't want that to continue. 

He just wanted Anxiety to be happy.


	14. Chapter 14

Virgil groaned as he found himself waking up from yet another dream about his stupid family. Since when was this a thing? He never dreamed about them. Ever. That was the whole point of the ‘bury the pain away and never think about it again’ coping method. So why was he thinking about again for the first time in two years? It was throwing him off balance. 

Virgil lifted himself out of bed and went on to tumblr as he waited for one of the three heroes to get their act together and let him out of his room. Reflecting on the conversations of the day before, Virgil couldn't help the guilt that began creeping in at the knowledge that both Patton and Logi- Logan, trusted him. Even though they most definitely shouldn't. They had kept defending him, and Patton had been nothing but nice to him and he was here trying to… 

To what? 

Kill them? 

Could Virgil really stand by and watch Deceit kill all three of them? And their friends. And their families. Could he really let that happen? 

Virgil thought back to Patton smiling at him from across the table every morning at breakfast. And turning around eagerly to ask Virgil what he thought of each character at the end of the first Steven Universe episode. And bounding up to him in a cat onesie and placing his hands on his hips as he informed Virgil sternly that he needed to go to bed. 

No. 

Virgil could not stand by and watch Deceit kill Patton. He just couldn't. 

But where did that leave him? It wasn't as though he could say ‘Hey Deceit? Remember those people who we've been trying to kill for the past two years? Well I was thinking instead of torturing them and everyone they hold dear we could just watch some cartoons with them and hold hands and skip into the sunset.’

Deceit was expecting Virgil to hand him a list of people for Deceit to find and torture in front of the three people Virgil was beginning to view as friends, and he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to hurt them. He really didn't. 

Now there was something a villain didn't think everyday, Virgil thought with a snort. 

“Morning, kiddo.”

The door slowly creaked open to reveal Patton. 

“Oh, you're awake. You should be sleeping!”

Virgil rolled his eyes. 

“I've been awake, for like, 15 minutes, dad. Chill.”

Virgil flinched. Did he actually just… 

Well, shit. 

“I didn't just say that.”

Virgil pushed past the hero, ignoring the big grin on his face. He didn't just call Patton dad, his face wasn't as red as a tomato, and everything was fine. 

… 

“So, Anxiety, we are actually all going to be out at work today.”

Virgil almost choked on his water. “Really?”

Princey glared at him. “Patton will be back at about one though, so don't even think about doing anything.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “I'm not going to do anything.”

Creativity growled at him, and then proceeded to aggressively shove waffle into his mouth, glaring at Virgil all the while. 

Logan sighed. “I… I hope that we can trust you, Anxiety.”

Virgil met his eyes and had to stop himself flinching away at Logan’s unsure but hopeful expression. 

“Of course we can, silly.” Patton grinned at Virgil. “Isn't that right, kiddo?”

“Y-Yeah. Of course.”

Suddenly losing his appetite, Virgil pushed his plate away, retrieved his headphones and began to blast his music at the loudest volume in an attempt to block out everything else. 

‘Of course we can silly.’

Virgil felt like he was going to sick.

...

Once he was finally alone, Virgil found himself beginning to freak out. Not telling Deceit Patton’s (and now also Logan’s) name was one thing, but this was different. He was alone in their home with complete access to all the information he could possibly need. He could find out exactly where he was, as at the moment he didn't have much of a clue. He could send Deceit the address and together they could have found the location of the families and friends of the three heroes, captured them and have laid a trap for all three of them by the time Princey got back. It wasn't like before. Not mentioning the two names was a lie of omission, it was leaving out one (well two) tiny details. Not doing this would be it blatantly not carrying out the task he was sent here to do. It would be… Well it would be him completely betraying Deceit. And he couldn't do that after all the other villain had done for him. 

As Virgil looked around Reluctantly for a source of information his eyes fell Logan’s room. Easing the door open he looked around. Most of it was as he would expect, neatly organised with one wall entirely covered with bookshelves and a massive pinboard on which a variety of schedules and pieces of paper with various bits of information had been placed. 

Of course the room came with its own little surprises. Pined on the board amongst all of Logan’s timetables and reminders were more than a few Sherlock Holmes quotes, and Virgil could have sworn that there was a Doctor Who mug on Logan’s desk. And while he was not quite sure he wasn't hallucinating, there seemed to be a unicorn onesie draped over the desk chair. There was also a telescope placed next to the desk, and a particularly interesting looking Alice in Wonderland puzzle book that Virgil was very tempted to ‘borrow’ was currently resting on Logan’s bedside table. 

Virgil smiled as he looked around the room. While he had known the man properly for less than a week, he couldn't help but feel that the room seemed perfect for Logan. Neat and without too much decoration, but with a few eccentricities that made Logan more than just a robot with no emotion. Honestly he wasn't fooling anyone with his whole ‘no feelings’ bullshit when he had a picture of himself, Patton and Princey attempting to bake a cake together on his desk. 

As Virgil went closer to the desk to see the picture more clearly he noticed a letter on the desk. Without thinking much of it he read the address, and then froze. Great. So now he knew where he was. All it would take is one text and Deceit would know exactly where they were. Tearing his eyes away from the letter Virgil scanned the rest of the desk and noticed a picture of Logan standing in front of a waterfall with a man, woman and teenage girl doing over-enthusiastic smiles and thumbs up to the camera. Logan himself looked both confused and as though he wouldn't be terribly bothered if the ground swallowed him up and took him away from wherever he was. Virgil grinned at the three people who must be Logan’s family. 

He stared at their faces. He had never met these people, and yet here he was plotting to kill them slowly and painfully simply because they were related to one of the people who was trying to stop him and Deceit. 

Virgil tore his eyes away from the picture. He didn't deserve to look at them. Angrily, he stormed back into the living room and threw his phone onto the sofa in disgust. How dare he look at this happy memory of a family that for the past two years he had been trying to tear apart. How dare he joke and laugh and have fun with these people who had been kind to him and trusted him all while he was plotting to… 

How dare he?! 

He didn't belong here, and he certainly didn't deserve to be here. He had let them trust him and care for him. He had manipulated them and lied to them. It was no wonder everyone had always seen him as a villain. And now here he was about to wreck their fucking lives! 

Unless he… didn't? Unless he just… stopped. And in doing so he would betray Deceit. The only person who had actually cared about him, when even his own family hadn't. Deceit had taken him in, he had helped him! And maybe Deceit wasn't a good person. Maybe he was a terrible person. But he had cared for Virgil when nobody else had, even though he knew what a terrible person Virgil was. 

Virgil found himself sinking down to the floor as he squeezed his eyes shut as he tried not to cry. 

“I don't know what to do.” He muttered shakily. “I don't… I… What am I supposed to do?!”

Virgil screamed and slammed his fist onto the floor, before placing his hands on his head and beginning to rock back and forth. 

“What am I supposed to do?” He whispered, tears streaming down his face.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: There are slight Steven Universe spoilers in this chapter, but only things that were in Cartoon Therapy. I have marked the beginning and end of the main paragraph with spoilers with a " * ", just in case you don't want to read it.

Virgil jumped as he heard the door to the flat being opened. Fuck. Had he really been lying on the floor that long? 

“Are you alright, there?”

Virgil felt his face turning red as he made hesitant eye contact with Patton. 

“W-What? Yeah, I-I’m fine. Absolutely fine.” Virgil said hurriedly, scrambling onto the sofa as he tried to subtly dry his eyes. 

“What’s wrong, kiddo? Wa-”

“Nothing is wrong. I'm fine!” Virgil growled, and then flinched at Patton’s hurt expression. Wow, he thought to himself, great job Virge. 

“Shi- Crap I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean to shout, I just…”

Patton smiled back at him. “Oh don't you worry about your old dad, kiddo. Just tell me what's wrong? Was it something that Princey said?”

As tempting as it was to get Princey into trouble, Virgil shook his head. “It’s fine.”

Patton raised his eyebrows, looking unconvinced. “Well, if you're sure…”

The two suddenly jumped as Patton’s phone began to buzz. “Oh sorry about this kiddo, I'll only be a minute.”

Virgil breathed a sigh of relief as Patton left the room. Who knew it would be so stressful to have people care about you and your wellbeing? Well, not Virgil, that’s for sure. 

Turning on his phone, he felt his heart sink. 

‘1 message’

Virgil reluctantly opened his phone and read the message. 

‘Call me’

Well at least Deceit hadn't just called Virgil randomly, as that wouldn't have looked great if one of the others had been around, but that didn't make Virgil any less nervous about having to call the villain. Deceit had picked his name for a reason. He was great at lying, and even better at telling if someone else was lying. And Virgil was shit at lying. Mainly because of how much he hated doing it. Sure, he could just not tell Deceit something. But if Deceit directly asked him a question, he was screwed. So that was something to look forward to. 

“Sorry about that, kiddo!”

Virgil jumped as Patton bounded back into the room.

“That was just my friend Emile. We are trying to arrange a time to meet up and so he was just calling to see when I was free. Hey, maybe you can come too!”

Sure, Virgil would love to socialise even more than he was doing already. 

“I think you'd like him! He is also a Steven Universe fan, so you already have something in common!”

“And you think that this is enough information for me to endure the painful experience of meeting a new person?”

Patton giggled. “I think you would really like him, kiddo! I mean it! He is really nice and he could tell you all about how he uses Steven Universe and tons of other cartoons in his therapy sessions-”

Virgil spluttered. “Are you trying to get me to go and see a therapist!?”

“N-No…”

“I am, like, the definition of good mental health!”

Patton raised his eyebrows. 

“What? I am! Out of all the people in the world I am, like, the person who is least in need of a therapist! I… Therapists should come to me for help on their mental health, you know! Because my mental health is like… You know. Good…”

“I'm just trying to help you, kiddo.” Patton said quietly. “I… You don't even have to meet him at all if you don't want to. But it would be nice. Because it would be nice to make some new friends.”

There was no way Virgil could say no to Patton when he was being so nice. So basically there was never a situation when Virgil could say no to Patton. “Fine. I mean, sure. Whatever…”

“Yay! I think you'll really like him! I mean it! He is really cool. You know, it's so cool because he uses Steven Universe in his sessions and-”

“Yeah, about that, how the hell does that work?!”

“Well I'm sure he could explain it better than I can, but usually in his couple counselling he uses the ideas of fusions to represent each couple. He can do it with friendships too. I've been trying to convince him to assign one of the Steven Universe fusions to me and Logan and me and Princey for ages now!”

“But how is a relationship or friendship like a fusion?”

“Well Emile always says that fusions demonstrate the importance of relationships and working together.”

“Oh. Cool…” Virgil muttered. “And what does this have to do with me seeing a therapist?”

“Well… You remember how in Steven Universe fusions can be both good and bad, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, it's the same with relationships and friendships.”

Virgil tilted his head in confusion. “I don't… I don't know what you mean. I'm not… I’m not in a bad friendship or a bad relationship. I mean I don't really have any friends.”

Patln looked at him sadly. “I-I’m your friend, kiddo. You know that, right?”

“Well maybe you shouldn't be…” Virgil muttered, his mind helpfully reminding him of exactly where Patton’s trust in Virgil would lead when Deceit decided to show up. 

“What!? Why?”

“I'm not… I… I'm not exactly the kind of person someone wants to be friends with.”

Patton leapt to his feet. “Now that is not true! If you keep talking bad about yourself I'm going to physically fight you!!”

Virgil leaned back on the sofa. “Um… Okay…”

“No one talks about my child like that! But even if you aren't in any bad friendships or relationships, although you are in most definitely in good friendships right now with me, Logan and Princey (and if you say that you disagree with me I will fight you), after bad relationships it's good to talk to someone about it.”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “Are you talking about me and Deceit?”

“Well, I couldn't help but notice that the “friendship” between the two of you wasn't very… friendly. I mean he cared more about capturing Logan then making sure you were going to be safe!”

Virgil flinched at the memory. “Yeah, but… We just have- I mean had, a different kind of friendship. I mean we are villains, Patton. You wouldn't understand. It's just different.”

“But it's not, kiddo! No matter who you are, what a good and a bad friendship is stays the same.”

“So this is why you want me to see your friend. Because you think Deceit wasn't very nice? I mean come on, I've- I've stopped working with him now. Why does it matter?”

Patton sat down next to him on the sofa. “Kiddo, you remember Malachite, right?”

“The, er… fusion from Steven universe, yes?”

“Well, Emile always uses Malachite as a representation of bad relationships, romantic and platonic, because it represents the bad parts of a relationship.”

“Patton, I get that you're trying to help, but… I mean, my relationship with Deceit was nothing like Malachite.”

Virgil began to think back to all of his interactions with Deceit. Ignoring how ridiculous it was to compare their friendship to a fusion in a cartoon in the first place, they really were nothing alike. Right? It was true of course that their friendship wasn't like the friendship between Patton, Logan and Princey, but it wasn't unhealthy. 

*"Lapis is constantly fighting against Jasper, and vice versa, and there is a constant struggle between the two of them. The other fusions on the show all demonstrate the best of all gems involved, but Malachite is constantly fighting, and makes Lapis visibly fatigued. And that isn't healthy. Which is why Lapis leaves the fusion. And refuses to fuse with Jasper again. But even so, Lapis still finds that she misses being a part of Malachite. And… I don't want to assume anything, but maybe it is something that you might want to talk about.”*

“Yeah… I'm going to… go to my room now.”

Virgil ran into his room and slammed the door. This was ridiculous. Patton just didn't understand!

Virgil sighed and lay down in the bed. But it wasn't as though Virgil hadn't related to everything Patton had said. Part of him thought that he was ridiculous for even thinking about it, but the other part of him was beginning to agree with Patton. His relationship with Patton and his relationship with Deceit were almost opposites of each other. And if he found his friendship with Patton so great, then what did that mean about his friendship with Deceit?

He suddenly found himself running out of his room. 

“I'm going to take a shower!” He yelled over his shoulder as he passed a very bewildered Patton who was still sitting on the sofa. 

Locking the door to the bathroom and quickly turning on the shower to full. It would be best if Patton couldn't hear anything that was going on. He sat down on the floor, opened his phone and hurriedly pressed ‘call’ before he changed his mind. 

“Virgil.”

He froze the moment he heard Deceit’s voice from the other end of the line. 

“Hi…”

“You've been… incredibly quiet, as of late, Anxiety, so I do hope for your sake that you've got some information for me. You don't happen to know where you are, by any chance, or are you still too useless to have found out anything of importance?”

“Actually, I do know my location.”

There was a pause.

“Virgil? I'm getting impatient. Tell me where you are.”

Virgil took a deep breath and gathered all his courage together. “No.”

There was a long silence. “Excuse me?”

“I said no.”

“I am well aware of what you said, Virgil, I'm not the stupid one in this conversation. Now would you be so kind as to inform me exactly what you mean by ‘no’?”

“I mean that… I-I…”

“Spit it out, Virgil.”

“I'm- I'm not going to help you anymore! I-I’m done being Anxiety, being this- this evil person who brings nothing but fear and pain. That isn't who I am and I refuse to work with you for another second!”

Deceit’s voice is calm and cold from the other end of the line. “I hope you don't mean that, Virgi-”

“Don't fucking call me that! You don't get to do that! You- you have used me for years! You took me in when I was vulnerable and scared and manipulated me and made me think that you cared about me! But you never did!” Virgil sobbed. 

“You- you never did, did you?” Virgil whispered.

“Virgil, dear, you know that I-”

“Don't! Don't lie to me, damn it! Just tell me the truth. For once, just tell me the fucking truth!”

Virgil flinched as he heard Deceit laughing, his laugh cold and cruel and devoid of any emotion. “Of course I never cared about you. There isn't anyone who could care about someone like you!”

“Patton could!” Fuck. 

“Who?”

“I- Morality could. He-he does! He cares about me!”

“And I'm sure Patton trusts you completely, doesn't he?”

“Yes…”

“That's adorable. It will be such a shame, of course, when he realises you've been working for me this whole time.”

Virgil froze. “I-”

Deceit laughed again. “You didn't think about that, did you Virge? You probably should have, though. You really think they'll continue to “care” about you when they realise you betrayed them?”

“But I-”

“I hope you enjoy your time with your “friends” while it lasts, Virgil, because when I find you, I'm going to destroy you.”

“Deceit, I-”

“What? You think you can just betray me and then walk away? I don't think so. If you think what I'm planning to do to the others is bad, you just wait Virgil. You are going to regret this. I am going to make you suffer like you have never suffered before! And I'm going to start by making you watch as I tell your little friends exactly how you've been repaying their trust!”

“I hate you!” Virgil spat. 

“Hey, er, kiddo? Are you alright? I thought I heard shouting?”

“I-I'm fine, Patton. I'll be out in a minute!”

“You're lying!” Deceit sang in his ear. 

“Fuck you!”

“It was nice to speak to you, Anxiety. I'll see you again soon.”


	16. Chapter 16

To say that Virgil was stressed would be a severe understatement. Once his sudden rush of bravery began to leave him, he found himself trying not to scream. What had he done?! 

Rushing into the shower, he sat down under the hot water and tried not to cry. Deceit was right, there was only so much time before the other three realised his original motivation or just got sick of him and kicked him out. And then what was he going to do?! 

“Kiddo, can I come in? You've just, you've been in there for a while now.”

… 

Patton let out a small gasp as a dripping wet Anxiety opened the door. 

“W-Why are you all wet?!”

Anxiety raised his eyebrows. “I was having a shower.”

“In your clothes?”

“Um… yeah.”

Patton grabbed his dark strange son and began to drag him into the living room. 

“You'll catch a cold!”

“I'm fi-”

“IF YOU THINK YOU ARE GETTING A COLD ON MY WATCH, YOUNG MAN, YOU CAN THINK AGAIN!” Anxiety jumped. “Now let's see if I've got something you can change into.”

“It’s fine dude, Logan’s already lent me clothes.”

“I’m your dad, not your dude…”

“You're not my-”

“And besides, you need something warm. Now go change.” Patton shoved some clothes in Anxiety’s hands and pushed him into his room. 

“I am not wearing this.”

Patton pouted. “Pwease?”

“Are you…? You're doing that cute face with the puppy eyes again, aren't you?”

“Maybe…”

“Uh, fine!”

Three minutes later, Anxiety opened the door, giving Patton a death glare. “I can't believe you're making me wear this. I look ridiculous.”

“Well, I think you look purr-fect!”

“Did you just…? Did you just make a pun based on the fact that I've currently been forced into a black cat onesie?”

Patton giggled, before dragging Anxiety into the sofa.

“Now tell me,” He said, his voice turning more serious, “What is bothering you, buddy?”

“Nothing!”

“Are you sure?”

Anxiety sighed. “It's just… I  
I mean what happens now!”

“What do you mean?”

“I am- I was a villain Patton! I wasn't a great guy, okay. I’m still not a great gu-”

“I will fight you…”

“And I just, where exactly do I go from here? I mean I can't just stay in your home borrowing your stuff and getting in the way forever. So what… What comes next?”

“WHAT COMES NEXT! YOU'VE BEEN FREED! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO LEAD! YOU'RE IN YOUR OWN… Oh come on, guys! Hamilton? No? Did I… I’m interrupting something, aren't I? Well… I'm home? It's good to see you, I guess? I'll er… be in my room?” Roman, who had just burst in through the door, slowly shuffled through the room before awkwardly slipping into his room and closing the door. 

Anxiety cleared his throat. “Well, um, anyway as I was-”

“WAIT JUST A MINUTE!!” Roman’s door was suddenly flung open again. “BY GREAT ODIN’S EYEPATCH DO MY EYES DECEIVE ME OR IS THE INCREDIBLE SULK WEARING A CAT ONESIE!? WHAT THE HECKIDY HECK, FIVE ABS AND ONE PECK?! I'M OUT FOR A FEW HOURS AND I RETURN AND THE WORLD HAS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN!! SWEET COLE SPROUSE, I CANNOT TAKE THIS-”

“Would someone care to inform me what exactly is going on?”

“Logan’s home!” Patton squealed. 

“Oh sure, so when I get home I get weird looks but when it's Logan who gets home he gets a fanfare!” Roman muttered, crossing his arms. 

“I am sorry, what is going on? Is Anxiety in a cat onesie?”

Patton grinned manically. “He's like a little kitten!”

Logan sighed and buried his face in his hand. “Patton…”

“You said we couldn't manage an animal in this household, so now Anxiety is a cat!” The hero squealed, before diving for said cat and wrapping him in his arms, causing him to hiss. 

“See, he even hisses!”

Logan looked a second away from either crying or screaming. “I-I can’t, I-I… Flames. On the side of my face. See-Seething… Seething fire…”

“I've just got a lot of feelings!”

“Is anyone going to help me!?” Anxiety growled, still struggling in Patton’s clutches. 

“Sorry there, kiddo. I just got over excited!”

“So is anyone going to actually explain what is going on?” Roman finally spluttered. 

“Yes, I second that. I am extremely confused.”

“Hi extremely confused, I'm dad!”

“Patton…”

He giggled again. “Sorry Logan. Well, Anxiety was cold, and I didn't want my dark, strange son to catch a cold. ..”

“Your what?!” Roman muttered. 

“So…”

“You put him in a onesie.” Logan said, with an extremely unimpressed look on his face. 

“I seem to recall that a certain someone actually has a unicorn onesie yourself…”

Logan spluttered, glaring at Roman. “I told you not to bring that up! But while we're on the subject, do you not yourself own at least twenty five hair care products!?”

“Well you misused the word infinitesimal!”

“THAT WAS ONE TIME, AND YOU WEREN'T EVEN THE ONE WHO POINTED IT OUT!!”

(“Hey Anxiety?” Patton whispered. “Do you want some popcorn?”

“I'm good for now, thanks. Hey, how often does this usually happen?” He whispered back. 

“About once a week. It varies, though.”)

“YOU KNOW WHAT, I'M NOT TAKING THIS ANYMORE!!!! I'M CALLING MY AGENT!! I CANNOT WORK IN THESE CONDITION!!!!”

“You're not even in a theatre right now!” Logan shouted. “Although given how dramatic and extra you are all the time, I can see how you'd get confused!”

(“Oo, burn!” Anxiety whispered.)

“THAT'S IT, LOGAN!! I'M EATING ALL THE CROFTERS!!” Roman shrieked, marching to the kitchen. 

“DON'T YOU DARE!!!!” Logan screamed, as he dived through the air and tackled Roman to the floor. Patton flinched, that must have hurt. 

Knock knock knock. 

The two grown men currently rolling around on the floor jumped up, and Logan answered the door. 

“Mrs Witherspoon, it's so good to see you again.”

“Sorry to bother you dear, but would you mind lowering the volume a bit. My grandson Nathan is over, and he has an early bedtime, so…”

“Of course, that won't be a problem. Say hello to Marcus for us, will you?”

“Of course, dear. I'll see you soon.”

Logan slowly closed the door. “If you are touching my jar of Crofters jam right now you will severely regret it.”

Roman slowly withdrew his hand from a certain jar and stepped away from the kitchen. “Nope. Just… Checking…   
Things.”

“Good.” Logan straightened his tie. “Now if you will excuse me I have a few things I'd like to get done before dinner. Anxiety, Patton, it's good to see you.” 

“W-What just happened?” Anxiety muttered, as Logan’s door clicked shut. 

“Well, kiddo, I like to think it was a rather good demonstration of where we go from here.”

Anxiety looked at Patton sceptically. “So you're saying our next step is to start screaming about onesies and jam?”

“No, silly…” Patton giggled. “I mean all of this. You know, the four of us doing silly stuff together. Even if said silly stuff is two of us screaming and two of us laughing in the background.”

Anxiety’s eyes widened. “The four of us?”

“Of course! You rescued Logan and went directly against Deceit! We weren't just going to send you away!”

“We weren't?” Roman muttered. 

“No, we weren't.” Patton said forcefully. “Anxiety is one of us now. We are all against Deceit, and so we're all in this together…”

“Princey if you start singing I'm going to come over there and throttle you.” Anxiety suddenly growled, rounding on Roman, who was still eyeing Logan’s jar of crofters. 

“Who said I was about to sing?!”

“When are you not about to sing?!”

“True…”

“Sorry Patton, please continue.” Anxiety turned back to face him.

“Well, yes. We're a team now!”

Anxiety smiled, although it didn't quite reach his eyes. “Really?”

“Yes!” Patton said firmly and wrapped the light of his life in another hug. 

Anxiety relaxed into the hug for ten seconds before pulled away. “Well that's all the cheesiness I can handle for one day.”

“Is that so?” Roman muttered, before suddenly lobbing a huge piece of cheddar cheese at Anxiety’s head. 

There was silence for a minute. Anxiety stared at him. “Did you just? Throw cheese? At my head?”

Roman backed into the corner. “No…”

“You are so dead.”

“Oh, really? Bring it, Charlie Frown.”

Anxiety smirked. “Logan! Princey’s eating your Crofter’s!”

Roman’s eyes widened in horror. “What have you done?”

“Bye.” Anxiety smirked again, before doing a two finger salute and slipping into his room. 

Patton smiled fondly. It finally felt as though Anxiety was beginning to open up and become more comfortable as part of the group. And it also seemed as though the other two were warming up to him, even if Roman still had a bit further to go. As Patton grinned at the thought of the four of them and the memories that they were going to make together, he found himself wondering if perhaps he should stop Logan from attacking Roman with his copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.


	17. Chapter 17

“Oh, dear, sweet mother of hairbrushes, what is my hair?!” Roman frowned as he eyed said hair in the mirror. He couldn't have had more than three hours of sleep last night, so how had his hair gotten so messed up?! 

“Roman! Logan and I are leaving!”

Abandoning his fruitless quest to tame the wild beast that was his hair, he began to head into the kitchen, aware of the fact that Patton and Logan being awake and about to leave would result in there being breakfast on the table. 

“I told you to only call me Prince or Creativity, Patton! I don't want Anxiety knowing my name!”

Patton frowned. “You still don't trust him?”

“If he won't tell me his name, why should I tell him my name?”

“But it is more than that. Patton and I have both had our moments of seeing eye to eye with Anxiety, but you seem to remain resolute as ever in how you perceive him.”

Roman sighed as he eyed the door to Anxiety’s room. While the other two seemed to have lost all suspicion with regards to the former(?) villain, he couldn't help but still feel the need to constantly watch the emo nightmare out of the corner of his eye. It wasn't that he didn't trust Anxiety, it was just that he didn't have a lot of reasons to trust him. 

Anxiety had saved Logan, but the other two were forgetting all that he had done to hurt them and their city beforehand. He would admit that he honestly did want to trust Count Woe-laf, but he knew that if he did Anxiety would have no opposition. And on the off chance that he was still working with Deceit, there needed to be one person on the team who still scrutinised of all Anxiety’s actions and so would be able to tell if he was working against them. 

Or maybe he just didn't really like Anxiety and was trying to come up with an excuse. 

“Are you okay there, Ro?”

“What? Oh, just thinking.”

“Don't hurt yourself.” Logan muttered as he rose from the table. 

“Logan!” Patton admonished. 

“I was just looking out for him, Patton.”

“But you really don't trust him?”

Roman squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the hurt expression on Patton’s face. “It's not you that I don't trust Patton, there's no need to take it so personally! I-I'm sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“Patton, we should be leaving now.” Logan interrupted. 

“I just… Please at least try to get along with him.” Patton pleaded, as he began to get up and head towards the door. 

Roman grimaced. “It's not that simple, Patton! We just… we've directly fought against each other for two years! That's not… It’s not just something that can be forgotten.”

“I seem to recall that Patton and I fought Anxiety as well, and yet we have both managed to… Patton look at the time! If we don't leave now I won't arrive at work at the correct time!”

“Chill out, nerd! You are being way too dramatic! And besides, it doesn't count. You guys had the odd fight with him, but I fought him every time. I mean he is basically my arch nemesis.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Now who is being dramatic?”

“Oo snap! Don't be mean, though.” Patton giggled, before becoming more serious and turning back to Roman. “But just… Please try Roman. For me.” 

“Sure Patton, I'll try.”

Patton squealed and wrapped Roman in a hug, which was suddenly cut short by Logan screaming “PATTON!!!! We are going to be late!”

Roman spun around. “Are you serious?! We were having a moment.”

“I'm always serious. Clearly. I wear a necktie.”

“Serious people wear neckties.” Patton muttered. “But Logan is right.”

“As much as I appreciate being told that I'm right, you're going to have to be more specific. I'm right a lot.”

Roman dramatically rolled his eyes. 

“Well you were right about the whole Anxiety thing, but also… We do really need to go.”

Logan, having once again been reminded of the delay to his carefully planned morning routine, frantically grabbed Patton and began to run out of the door. 

“Have a good day, kiddo! And remember to play nice!” Patton yelled as he was dragged down the hall. 

… 

Once the others had made their somewhat dramatic exit, Roman flung Anxiety’s door open. 

“A very good morning to you, Brad Pitt-iful!”

Anxiety snarled and chucked his pillow at Roman, before burying himself under the duvet. “Fuck off.”

“Roman smirked. “But it's such as lovely day.” He walked to the window and yanked the curtains open. Anxiety hissed at the light. 

“You know I do set an alarm, right? I don't actually need one of you to come in here every morning.” Anxiety grumbled. 

“Is that so, Jack Smellington? And how many times has it gone off already this morning?”

“Just because it goes off does not mean I need to get up.”

“I hate to break it to you but it kinda does.”

“Whatever.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. 

“Well…” Roman began. “I'm going to have a shower, and um… There's food on the table. Yeah.”

Anxiety smirked. “Oh? Will you need any help carrying your twenty five hair products into the bathroom?”

“I-I… I do not have twenty five hair products.” Roman sputtered. 

“Oh my mistake. Will you need any help carrying your twenty six hair products into the bathroom?”

Roman growled. “Logan will pay for having told you this. ”

Anxiety laughed. “I'm pretty sure your attempts to make him ‘pay’ yesterday didn't exactly go to plan.”

“Oh yeah, and while we're on that subject don't think I haven't forgotten the fact that you got him to attack me.”

Anxiety shrugged. “You're the one who said ‘bring it’.”

“Well yeah but I meant you bring it, not for you to get Logan to come and beat me up!”

“Should have been more specific.”

“Well I'm going to go have my shower before I decide to show you exactly how much it hurts to get repeatedly whacked with a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows…”

“I-I'm sorry, what?!”

“Don't you dare laugh, the Microsoft Nerd can be a fearsome opponent. Now if you will excuse me, I shall depart.” Roman dramatically flicked his hair and twirled to the door. 

“Sure, Roman, whatever helps you sleep at night!”

“I can't hear you!” Roman sang as he ran into the bathroom. It was only once he had gotten into the shower that he   
realised that Anxiety had called him Roman.


	18. Chapter 18

“Sure, Roman, whatever helps you sleep at night!”

“I can't hear you!”

Virgil lay face down on his bed, and began to repeatedly bang his head against his pillow. 

After accidently calling Princey by his brothers name, he had been ready to be swallowed up by the floor. However, when Princey just carried on without a second thought, Virgil was faced with a different reason to want to be swallowed up into the ground. 

Somehow, he had managed to fight his brother for two years and then share an apartment with him without realising who he was. While Roman hadn't realised who he was either, he had always been extremely unobservant, but for Virgil to not realise it? He must have been repressing memories of his family much better than he thought he had. 

“Oh Destiny, thou art a heartless bitch”, he muttered into his pillow. Because after all those years of his parents favouring Roman over him, it turned out they were right. Roman has become the hero, and Virgil had become the villain.

His musings were intercepted by Roman running in in a towel. “How do you know my name?! Who told you? Was it Patton? Or did you just over hear it this morning? Have you been spying on us? Wh-”

“Dude. Chill.” Virgil sighed and turned to face his brother for the first time in six years. Of course he had seen his brother since then, but then he had always been Creativity. Now he was seeing Roman for the first time. 

“How do you know my name? When did you find out?! How long have you known it?!”

“Okay you need to calm down. And I've known it for a long time.” Virgil looked into Roman’s eyes, hoping to see a sign of recognition. “A very long time. You could almost say it’s as though I've known it since I was born. ” He prompted. 

“How?”

“Well I guess I'm just a very vigilant person.”

“So you were spying on us!” Roman yelled triumphantly. 

“What? No! That wasn't what I was saying… Holy shit! It's no wonder you haven't figured it out yet if you're this slow. Or maybe I'm just awful at dropping hints…”

“Dropping hints about what?”

“About who I am!”

“And that is…?”

Virgil sighed. “You seriously don't recognise me!? We've known each other for years.”

“Well, yes. I mean we've fought against each other for-”

“I mean from before that you dollophead!”

Roman looked at him blankly. 

“Oh come on, man. You seriously don't recognise me at all?” He yelled. “I mean I guess it's a bit rich coming from me given that I only realised it this morning but I literally haven't changed at all! I literally don't even have a different hoodie! I mean I tried not to think about any of you for two years, but what's your excuse?!”

“What are... What are you talking about?” Roman asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“It’s me, you prat!”

“IT'S WHO?!”

“Oh for fucks sake, dude!! I'm your brother!”

Roman was silent for a minute. “What?”

Virgil sighed and collapsed back onto his bed. 

Roman blinked at him. “What are you talking about? You're… You're not my brother.”

“Hate to break it to dude but I kind of am.”

“Really? What's your name then?”

Virgil looked Roman straight in the eyes. “My name is Virgil.”

“Oh. Well you've clearly done your research then, but that doesn't prove anything.”

Virgil gaped at his brother. “Are you serious?! You actually don't believe that… Oh I give up!”

Did his brother really know so little about him that he couldn't tell it was him even when he was right in front of him shouting out his name? Did Roman care that little about Virgil that he had forgotten him? Did his brother really hate him that much that he had just never thought about him at all? 

“Are you… Are you crying?”

“Fuck off, Roman? If you aren't going to believe me you aren't going to believe me, okay? Just fuck off and leave me alone.”

“S-So wait, you really are my brother?”

Virgil glared at Roman. “What gave it away?”

“B-But… you never had powers?”

“I didn't develop them until I was twelve.”

Roman sunk to the floor. “A-And… You didn't tell me?”

“Oh come on. Manipulating shadows? I mean how much more evil villain can you get?”

“So you were fine with letting mum and dad constantly complain about your lack of power?”

“It was better that way. I really didn't need to give you, mum, or dad any more reasons to hate me.”

Roman say down next to him on the bed. “We didn't hate you, Virgil.”

Oh, really?” Virgil spat. “So you didn't tell mum and dad not to bring me whenever they visited you in college because you didn't want to see me?”

“Um, no? I thought you didn't come because you didn't want to see me.”

Virgil growled. “Those little…”

Roman looked shocked. “Why would they keep us away from each other?”

“I'm sure they just didn't want me to influence you with my evil ways.”

“I just… I can't believe they would do something like that.”

“Really? You don't? You do realise that mum and dad kicked me out, right?”

Roman froze. “They what?”

“Yeah, some guy was strangled by something that may have been shadows somewhere nearby us by someone in black clothing. So naturally our parents decided that I must have been the culprit and told me to get out before they told the police. They didn't even give me a chance to try and defend myself.”

There was a moment of silence before Virgil to turned to Roman. “You aren't going to ask me if I did it?”

“No. I know that you didn't.”

“How?”

“You're my little brother, Virge. And I know that you wouldn't just kill someone for no reason. That's not you.”

Virgil stared at him. “You do realise that's exactly what I've been doing for the past two years, right?”

Roman sighed. “Yes, I… That's why… That's why at first I didn't believe you when you said you were my brother. Because the things Anxiety’s done… Virgil would never do those things. Ever. He just wouldn't.”

Virgil started to cry. “B-But I-I did, Roman! I did so many bad things, and I hurt so many people, a-and…”

Roman pulled him into a hug. 

“Hey, it's okay.”

Virgil continued to cry. Over the last two years he had refused to think about any of the things he had done, in order to avoid the guilt he would feel. But now that he had put his time with Deceit behind him he couldn't help remember everything that Deceit had made him do.

“I-I just…”

“Virgil, can ask you a question?”

“Y-You just did, but sure.”

Roman laughed. “I see Patton’s corrupting you. But I just wanted to know, how did you end up with Deceit? Why… Why did you become Anxiety? There has to be a reason.”

“Maybe there isn't. Maybe… Maybe I'm just a bad person and mum and dad were right from the start.”

“I refuse to believe that, Virgil. A bad person wouldn't be crying over the things they've done in the past and they certainly wouldn't have rescued someone and joined the people they were fighting against.”

“W-Well, I met Deceit when I was seventeen, a few weeks before mum and dad kicked me out.”

“And what did he do?”

“He didn't do anything. He just gave me his number and told me to call him if I ever needed anything. He knew about my powers, so I assume he was watching me for a while and wanted to try and get me to work for him.” Virgil laughed harshly. “You know I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who killed that guy, just to frame me in order to get me on his side.”

“And so after mum and dad… After they kicked you out you went to him for help. Why… Why didn't you come to me? ”

“Well, I… I kind of thought you hated me.”

“You did?” Roman whispered with a hurt expression on his face. 

“Well, yeah. Look, it doesn't matter, okay? I just, I went to Deceit, and he told me that no one would see me as anything other then something to be hated, so why not become just that. And I was so angry with the world and I had never been treated as kindly as Deceit was treating me so I agreed. I was an idiot, okay? I just… I thought that he cared about me, I thought we were friends. But I was wrong.”

“And when did you realise that?”

About twenty hours ago. “Probably when he was happy to let me die as long as he got to take Logan captive.” Virgil sighed. If only he had figured it out then. Then he wouldn't be in this situation where he had to lie to all his friends and be in constant fear of when they would find out about exactly when he stopped working with Deceit. 

Roman hugged Virgil tightly. “It's going to be okay, Virge. I'm sorry about all you've been through, but I promise I will protect you now. Nothing else is ever going to harm you.”

Virgil had to force himself not to snort. He would love to believe that, but he could not stop his last conversation with Deceit playing over and over again in his mind. If Roman thought that nothing else was going to harm him he was sorely mistaken. 

“Now if you don't mind I have some parents who I'd like to give a piece of my mind.”

“What?! You really don't have to do that , Roman. I don't want you to damage your relationship with mum and dad for me.”

Roman laughed. “Trust me, Virgil, there isn't much to ruin. I may have thought you didn't want to see me, but when mum and dad didn't even invite you to Thanksgiving or Christmas or anything… I wouldn't let that stand. So I said if you weren't going to be there, neither was I.”

“Oh. Um… Thanks.”

Roman laughed. “It's good to have you back, Virgil.”

“It's good to be back, Romano.”

“I was hoping you would have forgotten that one.”

Virgil laughed, before allowing himself to smile as he hugged his brother tightly. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, everything might just be okay.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you do much for everyone's comments on the last chapter I am literally screaming!!! I am so happy you guys liked it! Anyway on with the chapter :)

“Princey! Anxiety! We're home!” Patton yelled. Logan sighed and followed behind him. 

“There is really no need to shout, Patton. I'm sure that they heard the door opening.”

Logan glanced around the apartment, pleased to see that everything was intact. He could never be sure what would happen when Roman and Anxiety were left alone together. 

“I don't see them anywhere.” Patton whispered. “You don't think they've killed each other, have you?”

Unsure of just how much his friend was joking, Logan was quick to reassure him. “I doubt that would be the case, Patton. Of course there is always the possibility of such an outcome, but the chances of something like that happening are-”

“Infinitesimal?”

Logan breathed in deeply. “I am going to ignore what you just said and move on.”

Just then they heard a scream coming from Anxiety’s room. 

“Are you sure they aren't trying to kill each other?” Patton asked nervously. 

“Well, I would hope that the somewhat small but none the less appreciated common sense that Anxiety has displayed in previous situations would prevent an event like that from taking place.” Logan said, before straightening his tie and walking over the Anxiety’s room. 

On entering it, Logan found himself rather confused as to what he was seeing. As he glanced around the room he noticed a collapsed pile of blankets and pillows that was probably once a fort, a lot of biscuit wrappers and Roman’s ukulele. However, Logan found his attention was mainly drawn to Anxiety beating Roman with a pillow. 

He cleared his throat, causing the two of the to spring apart. 

“Oh. Hey, Logan.” Roman began awkwardly. 

“And Patton.” Anxiety added, nodding to Patton, who was still taking in the mess that was Anxiety’s room. 

“While I am glad to see what I assume is the two of you getting along, did you really need go do all of… this?” Logan asked, gesturing around the room. 

“Oh keep quiet, Microsoft Nerd!” 

Logan sighed, adjusting his glasses. As pleased as he was to see the two them getting along, although whether they actually were or not was still a bit debatable, this was not what he needed right now. 

“So, what have you been up to, kiddos?”

“Well, we-”

“Clearly they have been engaging in the destruction of a room.”

Roman cleared his throat. “Excuse me! Well, like I was saying before I was interrupted by the Microsoft Turd-”

“Same joke!” Anxiety interrupted. 

“It was a variation and I can think of a Microsoft third. Oh, look I just did.” 

Logan rolled his eyes. He had a feeling this was going to be a very long evening. Deciding to leave the room before Roman’s ridiculous behaviour began to affect him, he headed to the kitchen to ensure that no one had touched his Crofters while he was out. 

… 

Once the mess that was Virgil’s room was dealt with, and after a near disaster that may or may not have resulted in Patton accidently setting Logan’s tie on fire, the four occupants of the apartment sat down for dinner. 

“Hey Roman, can you pass the potatoes?” Virgil asked absentmindedly. 

Patton spluttered and almost choked on his water. “You… You know his name?”

Roman glanced up. “Oh yeah. It's a funny story actually. So basically me and V-”

He was cut of by Virgil frantically covering Roman’s mouth with his hand. There was no way his brother was going to be the one revealing his name. 

Patton almost fell out of his chair. “W-Wait… Y-You… He knows your name!?”

Logan looked up. “Are you planning to share this information with us as well? Also Roman you said ‘me and’ before Anxiety cut you off, but you should have said Anxiety’s name and then ‘and I’.”

Virgil sighed. He might as well get this over with. 

“Yeah, sure. Whatever. So, um…”

Virgil looked around. His brother was nodding at him encouragingly, while Patton had an extremely excited looking grin on his face and Logan was trying very hard not to look intrigued. 

“Okay. My name… My name is Virgil! Okay, it's like a Band-Aid, you've just got to rip it off.”

Virgil looked around. 

“I LOVE IT!” Patton yelled, flying around the room and wrapping Virgil in a hug. 

Logan looked over the table to where Virgil was lying on the floor in Patton’s over enthusiastic embrace. 

“It's not what I expected, but I do like it. However, I am curious as to why you decided to reveal your name to Roman and why he decided to reveal his to you?”

Virgil escaped from Patton’s clutches and turned to Logan. “Well, you could say it's like I've always known-”

“Virge not to be rude but you suck at hinting.” Roman interrupted. 

“Well maybe you're just an idiot.” Virgil shot back. 

“Virge?! Oh my goodness I love it!!” Patton yelled. 

“So how did An- Virgil revealing his name to you come about, Roman?”

“Well… Turns out we're kind of brothers…” Roman began awkwardly. 

Patton squealed. “What!! You guys are brothers!? Oh my goodness this is so cool!!”

“Ah, I see. As you have said in the past that you only have one sibling am I correct in assuming that Virgil is the brother that you talk about all the time?”

Roman blushed.

“That is so kind. Oh, Roman, I'm honoured.” Virgil said, smirking at his older brother's embarrassment.

“I do not talk about him all the time!” Roman grumbled. 

“On the contrary, you bring him up in conversation at least three times a week.” 

Roman growled as Virgil continued to look incredibly smug. “Thanks, Logan.”

“You are welcome.” Logan said, before walking right up to Roman. “And if you touch my Crofters again and I'll tell Virgil exactly what happened at the after party for the last performance of Guys and Dolls you did last year.” He whispered in his ear, and then walked away. 

“You wouldn't.” Roman spluttered. 

“He would!” Patton sung. “And please do because you still haven't told me and I want to know!”

“Wait just a minute! If you know something embarrassing about Roman I want to know!”

“Sorry, Virgil, but that would defeat the point of employing the tactic of blackmail to protect my jam from your brother.” Logan stated calmly. 

Virgil smiled fondly. 

… 

After finishing dinner and watching Big Hero 6 and Black Cauldron at the request of Logan and Virgil respectively, Virgil retreated to his room to sleep. And by sleep he of course meant spending the next six hours scrolling on tumblr before finally getting so tired that he fell asleep. While not the best lifestyle choice, Virgil found it preferable to attempting to sleep by just lying in bed for hours in silence, as this always lead to hours of Virgil focusing on his existential dread as he contemplated his place in the universe.

Virgil opened the door to his room and turned on the light. He idly wondered when the room he was entering had ceased being a ‘room that he was staying in’ and became ‘his room’. It was slightly scary just how quickly this had become home, and just how quickly he had given his trust to Patton, Logan and Roman. Putting his trust into someone hadn't exactly gone to well last time, after all. However, this felt different. He just hoped he was right. 

Trying to stop dwelling on such things, Virgil began to get ready for bed. Yawning, he put his phone on charge, before changing into his pyjamas. After popping out to brush his teeth, and saying a final goodnight to the other three occupants of the flat, he closed the door to his room and walked over to his bed. 

Suddenly Virgil froze, his stomach filled with dread. Lying on his bed, placed there like a calling card, was a single, yellow glove.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: kind of a panic attack? I mean not really but there is a lot of panicky stuff and I just want to be safe

He found me. 

He found me. 

This was all Virgil could think about as he slowly backed away from his bed. 

How? How had Deceit worked out his location? He knew that Deceit hadn't placed a tracker on him or his phone, because Deceit hadn't known how careful the three heroes would be in checking whether Virgil was on their side or not. Virgil also hadn't been outside at all, so there was no way Deceit could have seen him. Unless Deceit had found him through one of the others? 

But he had tried to work out who the three heroes were for two years with no luck. 

Virgil suddenly jumped as he heard a sound coming from outside his room, before realising it was probably just Patton getting some food from the kitchen. Probably. 

Virgil slowly began to walk around the room, checking for any sign of whether Deceit was still in the room, and if he had done or taken anything. Virgil assumed that the glove had just been placed there to scare him, in which case mission accomplished, but there was always the possibility that Deceit had some other reason as well. And of course due to the man's shapeshifting abilities he could easily be hiding somewhere in the room. Watching him.

After having overturned everything in his room looking for even the smallest animal, Virgil came to the conclusion that at this particular moment Deceit was probably not in the room. Probably. 

Virgil carefully picked up the glove like it was a bomb about to go off, before flinging it into his closet and slamming the door. Looking around his room once more, he switched out the light and hesitantly got into bed.

In the dark, every shadow seemed to look like Deceit watching him. Freaking out again, he ran to the light, switched it on, and just lay in his bed looking around the room. 

“D-Deceit?” Virgil whispered. He waited for about ten minutes before giving up on there being a response. As much as Virgil didn't want Deceit to be here in his room, just sitting still waiting for him seemed worse, now that he knew that Deceit had found him. 

… 

“Virgil! Are you awake yet? How did you sleep?” 

“Yeah, I'm awake.” He had actually never gone to sleep, having spent the entire night looking around his room sure that Deceit was going to appear any minute. However, he wasn't going to tell his brother that. 

He opened his door and joined the others at the table, glancing around at the kitchen and living room for any sign of Deceit having been there. He continued to look around while eating his breakfast, causing Logan to look at him with concern. 

“Are you alright, Virgil? You seem rather… jumpy. Is everything okay?”

“Y-Yeah…” He muttered. 

Virgil was unsure what to say. None of the others were acting as though they'd seen anything that could indicate that Deceit had found out where they were, and so if Deceit had only sent Virgil a message, Virgil felt he could safely assume that Deceit’s message was only meant for him. 

“We are all at work today, Virgil, but if there is anything we can do to make you feel more at ease before we leave…”

Virgil let Logan’s voice fade into the background as he felt his heart sink. It didn't take a genius to realise exactly what the three of them being out meant. With the other three away it would be just him and Deceit. And being left alone with Deceit wasn't exactly Virgil’s idea of a fun time. It hadn't been even when they were “friends”, but he was especially not keen now that Deceit had promised him a slow and painful death. 

However, Virgil found himself feeling a bit of relief that the others wouldn't be here when Deceit did eventually show up. While Virgil found it unlikely that he would be able to convince the villain to just leave the three heroes alone, it was possible that he could come to some kind of arrangement with Deceit before the Deceit saw the others. And it would at least give Deceit time to take out most of his anger at Virgil so he was hopefully less cruel to the other three. Now that was a pleasant thought. 

“Virgil?”

He jumped. “W-What? Oh, um… N-No thanks, L-Logic. Er, Logan. I'm just gonna, um… go back to my room, so I'll er… I'll see you guys when you get back.”

Virgil gave what he hoped was a convincing smile and began to leave the room. 

“Have a good day, kiddo!”

“Th-Thanks, Patton. I-I’m sure I will…”

Virgil hurried out of the room, ignoring the concerned looks of the others. He was extremely unsure as to whether or not he should have informed the other three of Deceit’s little message. After all, it clearly wasn't what Deceit wanted, otherwise he would have told the other three that he knew were they were himself. And as the last thing Virgil wanted to do just before seeing Deceit again was to make him more angry than he already was, he decided it was best to just not mention it. For now at least. 

Entering his room, he dragged a chair in front of the door. He was unsure of whether it was Patton, Logan and Roman or Deceit that he was trying to keep out, but he did in none the less. He then sat down in the floor and waited until he had heard the other three leave the flat. 

Once they had, he waited. 

Nothing. 

The flat was deathly still, and Virgil could hear only a slight murmur from the flat next the to his friend’s and his increasingly quick breathing. 

He glanced around at his room. Nothing was out of place. 

Hearing a slight rustling, Virgil jumped, before realising it was just his hoodie brushing against the carpet. 

He looked around again. 

Nothing. 

Nothing out of place. 

No unexplained noise.

Nothing that suggested Deceit had ever been here. Hesitantly, Virgil stood up and walked over to his closet.

Could it just have been a dream? 

Slowly, he opened the door, before jumping back. 

The glove was still there, where he had thrown it the night before. 

Deceit was definitely here. 

Somewhere. 

Virgil strained his ears for some kind of sound that could give away the villain’s location. 

Nothing. 

Virgil often found himself listening to music instead of sitting in silence, as he had always hated it, but never had he found it as suffocating and terrifying as he did at this moment. 

“Deceit?” Virgil whispered. “Are… Are you there? L-Listen I know y-you've found me so…”

He clenched his fists at the lack of response. “Hello? Deceit please don't just stay quiet. Please I…”

Virgil started to cry. “Just say something!” He slammed his closet door, desperate to make some kind of noise to fill the silence. 

The idea of seeing Deceit again was terrifying, but knowing that Deceit was watching him and planning to do something awful to him at any moment without any idea of where he was or when he would act was a lot worse. 

After lying in the middle of his room crying for a few minutes Virgil reached his breaking point and began to use his shadows to feel around the room. When he still couldn't find a trace of Deceit’s presence he screamed in frustration. 

“Stop this! I know your fucking here so just come out and let's get this over with! Just fucking SAY SOMETHING!!”

Silence. 

Virgil threw himself onto the floor. 

“O-Okay, Virge, j-just breathe…” He whispered to himself. “C-Come on, what was that thing Elliott told you? In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. O-Okay. Four. Seven. Eight. F-Four. Seven. Eight.”

Slowly Virgil felt himself begin the calm down. He wiped the tears from his face with the sleeve of his hoodie and began to stand up. 

“Well, Virgil…” Virgil barely held in a scream as he heard a series of slow claps coming from next to his door. “That was quite the performance.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: *kind of a slight spoiler*  
>  implication of torture

Virgil slowly turned around. “D-Deceit.” 

Deceit walked towards him. “Yes, well done Virgil, your powers of observation never cease to impress me.” Deceit strolled up to Virgil’s closet and grabbed his glove. 

“So…” The villain asked as he slowly and decisively put his glove back on.“How have you been, Virgil?”

Virgil felt like he was going to throw up. “I-I…”

Deceit sighed in mock disappointment. “I see our time apart has done nothing to improve your ability to speak properly. Now, I think it's probably time we had a chat.”

By this point Virgil had started shaking. “A-A c-chat?”

“Yes, Virgil. A chat.”

Deceit walked back across Virgil’s room like he owned the place and sat down on Virgil’s bed. Virgil would have been angry if he hadn't been so focused on being scared. Deceit then patted the spot next to him impatiently, causing Virgil to scurry over to his bed and try to sit as far away from Deceit as he could. 

His former friend slid over to him, causing Virgil to tense. Deceit draped one arm over Virgil’s shoulder, his grip just strong enough to let Virgil know that he wasn't going anywhere. The villain began to absentmindedly fiddle with Virgil’s hair as he talked. “Now, Virgil, it should come as little surprise to you when I tell you that I am… rather displeased with you at this particular moment in time.”

Virgil whimpered and tried to half-heartedly pull away from Deceit, causing the villain to tighten his grip on Virgil’s shoulder and hair. “Would you like to tell me why that is, Virgil?”

“I…”

“Yes?”

“I, um… I-I decided to stop working with yo- well, for you, and befriended your enemies?”

“Yes, I do believe that is about right. Although I think the word ‘betrayal’ sums up your actions slightly better. It has a nicer ring to it, don't you think?”

Virgil shivered. Deceit’s voice and manner was calm, but Virgil could feel the ice cold fury just beneath the surface. 

“Well then, Virge.” Deceit sighed regrettably. “I'm sure you can understand that given everything you have done I am… absolutely furious. And I am left with the dilemma as to what to do with you. Part of me wants to slowly cut you up into little pieces. But of course you have been useful to me in the past, even if just barely, and it would be a shame to throw away all that effort I put into manipulating you into doing whatever I say…”

“I-I…” Virgil mustered up all his courage. “D-Do whatever you want, I'll never follow your orders again!”

Deceit laughed. “I must say I never took you for the brave and reckless type, but I guess your brother must be rubbing off on you.”

Virgil froze. “M-My brother?”

Deceit laughed again. “An extremely ironic coincidence, don't you think? I must say I was rather amused when I tried to find your family and noticed that your brother, a person who has powers and seems to look and act a lot like Creativity, was living with two other people, both of whom just happened to also have powers and match the description of Logic and Morality. And they were all living in the exact city that I knew the three heroes lived. So I decided to stop by for a visit was simply delighted to find you all here. But onto more pressing matters, I must say that I am not a fan of this new attitude of yours, Virgil.”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Virgil snapped back. He was getting tired of Deceit acting like he owned him.

Deceit smirked at him. “And while we are on the subject of things you didn't have when I last saw you, I must say I adore your more intense eyeshadow, it totally doesn't make you look like a raccoon.”

“Nice gloves. Did you just finish washing some dishes?”

“Your intelligence and wit never ceases to amaze me, Virgil.”

“Just saying dude. Like what is with your outfit? A bowler hat? I mean it's like you tried to dress as a Victorian Disney villain but had to give the kitchen a quick clean before you went to the Halloween party.” 

Virgil forced his way out of Deceit’s grip and stood up. 

“Leaving so soon?”

“Fuck off. I made it quite clear that I wanted nothing to do with you. I…” Virgil took a deep breathe. “I don't belong to you, s-so stop treating me like some… some pet who's done something bad and needed to be told off. I am a fucking person and if you're going to hurt me then just do it, but I warn you that I'm not just going to lie down and take it anymore! If you want to take out your anger on me then feel free to come and try it, but we both know that when it comes to fighting I'm stronger than you.”

Deceit started clapping. “What a moving speech. Tell me, did you rehearse it beforehand?”

Virgil growled. “Stop being so fucking patronising!” Virgil felt his anger continue to build as Deceit eyed him smugly, as though he was a petulant child unworthy of the villain’s time. In frustration, Virgil lunged out with his shadows, tossing Deceit across the room. Deceit began to laugh.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! Fight back, you bastard!” Virgil yelled, using his shadows to slam Deceit into the wall again. 

Deceit rolled his eyes and calmly dusted himself off. “As fun as that would be, Virgil, I doubt it would be a fight I could win. I would, however, very much appreciate it if you would just give in and promise to do whatever I say.”

Virgil looked at Deceit in confusion. “And why would I do that?”

Deceit laughed. “Oh Virgil. You see you've made one tiny little mistake, but unfortunately it's going to cost you quite a lot.”

“I-I don't… Wh-What did I d-do?”

“You see, Virgil, the problem with making friends, is you end up caring about their wellbeing.” 

Virgil froze. “L-Leave them alone. Leave them alone Deceit or I swear I'll…”

Deceit stood up and backed Virgil against the wall. “You try and hurt me and I'll torture them all until they beg me to kill them. And I'll make you watch as I tear them all apart. I'll torture Logan first, just so you can watch how the others scream for me to hurt them instead and leave him alone. And then I'll go to your brother, and I'll tell him everything you've done, every person you've killed and hurt until he can't bear to even look at you anymore. And once I've finally killed them and made you and Patton watch I'll turn to him. Although of course his real torture will be when he has to watch me do the same to Logan and Roman. Or maybe I'll give them all a choice on who I hurt first. Who do you think they'd all choose, Virgil?”

“Shut up! SHUT UP!!” Virgil started crying as he tried not to imagine all the ways Deceit could hurt his friends.

“Or what? You kill me now and I have friends that will descend on all of you and make you regret harming a hair on my head. I had tried to keep them out of conflict before, as it seemed… better that the general public didn't know there were even more villains in the city, but desperate times call for desperate measures. You try and hurt me and your friends will end up worse than dead. Is that understood?”

“P-Please! Just leave them alone! T-They never did anything to you, they were just trying to protect the city! I'm the only one here who has actually wronged you personally! Just leave them alone and…”

Deceit smirked at him. “And what?”

Virgil hung his head in defeat. “And I'll do whatever you want.”

“Are you sure, Virgil? But I thought you ‘wanted nothing to do with me’, and you weren't just going to ‘lie down and take it’ anymore. Where's all that fight gone?”

“F-Fuck you.”

“Now, Virgil, that's no way to speak to me.” Deceit shook his head, and then slammed Virgil against the wall. “Apologise.” There was silence. “Now.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Very good, Virgil. That wasn't too difficult, was it?” There was a pause again. “I said, that wasn't too difficult, was it?”

“N-No, it wasn't.” Virgil whispered, tears running down his face. 

“Isn't it so much simpler, if you just do what I say?”

“H-How do I know that they'll be safe?”

Deceit smirked at him. “I'm hurt that you don't trust me Virgil.”

“How do I know you'll keep your word!” 

“I'll bring them with us and keep them somewhere safe, so that you can see them and make sure that they're okay-”

“No! No, you aren't keeping them prisoners. Part of not harming them means they get to continue to live their lives.”

“Oh? So what do you suggest?”

“I-I stay here with them. So that I can make sure they're okay and they can continue their lives.”

Deceit grinned at him. “Oh, I see what this is. It's not them you care about, it's your friendship with them that you want to keep.”

“No! That's not true at all! I care about them more than I care about myself! I just…”

“I understand, Virgil. You want to keep your friendships. It’s cute, it really is. And because I'm so kind, I will allow it. Our three lovely heroes will be locked away from the outside world, and it will therefore be easy for you to pretend to still be on their side.”

“I am still on their side!” Virgil spat through gritted teeth.

“I believe what you meant to say is thank you.”

“S-So you'll keep them locked up but you won't harm them and they won't know what I've done.”

“Exactly. It benefits everyone.”

“But I… Th-They shouldn't be locked up! I don't want them to-”

“Remember, Virgil, I can take away your friendship in a second. I could do it right now. I could teleport straight to them and tell all of them just how much of your friendship with them is based on a lie.”

Virgil flinched. “That’s n-not… It's not a lie…”

“Is that really how you think they'll see it?”

Deceit suddenly transformed into Logan. “I was a fool to ever trust someone like you.”

“Stop it.” Virgil muttered. 

“I thought you were like me, I thought we were friends. But I guess you're just a liar and a traitor-”

“Stop it!”

Deceit transformed into Roman. “How could you! I thought I could trust you! I thought you had changed!”

“Stop this! You are NOT my brother.” Virgil spat. 

“You're right. We aren't brothers. We never were. You were never a part of our family and you mean NOTHING to me!”

“S-Stop it, please. Th-This… You aren't Roman! Just STOP IT!”

Virgil began to cry and he fell to the floor. “Just stop it, please. Stop.”

“Hey, kiddo.”

Virgil looked up and flinched as he saw Patton’s face. 

“Are you okay?”

“I-I… What are you doing?”

“I'm just checking on you, of course. Because I care about you. And I want you to know that no matter what the others think, I don't believe it. I know you didn't betray us, Virgil, because you would never do that. You would never try to manipulate us, and you would never-”

“Okay, I've got the point. Stop it.”

“I just want to make sure that you are okay, because I care about you so much. You are like a son to me. And you would never lie to any of us-”

“B-But I-I did…” Virgil sobbed. 

“W-What do you mean?”

“I know you're not him!” Virgil yelled, desperately trying to make Deceit stop before he went any further. 

“I don't understand, Virgil. It is me! I'm right here.” Patton, well Deceit, started to cry. “I-I… It's true, isn't it?”

“I-I'm sorry.” Virgil turned away. 

“B-But… I thought we were friends. I thought- I-I… I should have listened to the others! They were right about you this whole time! I-I… I hate yo-”

“SHUT UP! You aren't him! You aren't any of them! I get it, okay? You have leverage over me.”

Deceit laughed. “I do have so much fun messing with your head, Virgil.”

Virgil sobbed. 

“Then it's settled. I'll give you a few more days here, so I can work out how to capture the three of them without…” Deceit sighed. “Without hurting them. You can stay here with them for now.”

“If you harm them in any way this… agreement is off.”

“Of course, Virgil. And if you so much as mention me, or give them the slightest indication that I was here, the same goes. And that also goes for if you decide to fight back or you defy me in any way.”

Virgil sighed in defeat. “W-What's in this for you. You've spent the last two years trying to hunt them down. Why stop now?”

Deceit chuckled. “Because… loathe as I am to admit it, you are useful to me, and unfortunately I now need to find a way to control you. And as they cannot fight me while they are locked up, they will no longer be a threat to me. Of course I would prefer to make them suffer, but I can always torture you instead.” 

Virgil nodded. He knew that this agreement might not last for ever, and that it certainly wasn't a very good one, but at least for now he knew that he could keep his friends safe. 

“Now Virgil, you've caused me a lot of problems. You disobeyed me. You betrayed me. You've forced me not to hurt any of your ‘friends’, which is extremely annoying. Obviously I'm not very happy with you at the moment.”

Virgil shut his eyes. “Just… I get it. You want to hurt me or whatever. Stop dragging it out and just do it.”

He heard Deceit slowly peeling his gloves off. “This is going to be so much fun. Now, shall we begin?”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence

“Virgil, I'm home!” Patton yelled. “How are you doing? I hope you had something to do today. I've just realised that it's got to be kind of boring sitting in here all day. Maybe you should get a job? Not that you need to get one, I mean we are happy to support you and everything, but it would give you something to do and… sorry, I'm rambling. Virgil? Virgil, are you there?”

Patton glanced around the apartment, but found everything the same as it had been this morning. Walking over to Virgil’s door he knocked on it to the rhythm of the first line of the Steven Universe theme song. When he received no reply he knocked again with more urgency. 

“Virgil?! Are you doing okay?”

He heard shuffling from behind the door. “H-Hey, Patton. G-Good to have you home.”

“Are you okay, Virgil?”

“Y-Yeah! Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Great, actually.”

Patton didn't know if it was his imagination or if Virgil was speaking in a rather high pitched voice. 

“Just, er… you know. I mean Roman’s going to be home soon so… I'm just kind of in my room… to escape the noise. Also I'm pretty sure Roman ran out of Crofters and had some of Logan’s, and we both know that Logan measures the amount left in his jar with a ruler every day when he gets home. So I don't really want to be around for that, you know.”

“Well if you're sure, kiddo. Could I just come in an-”

“No! I, er… It’s kinda messy right now and I kinda just want to be alone for a bit.”

Patton was starting to get worried. “But you've been alone all day! Are you sure you don't want some company, ki-”

“Yes!” Virgil shouted, causing Patton to flinch at the loud noise. “Oh, um… Sorry, da- dude I didn't mean to shout, I just… I've got a bit of a headache and I kind of just want to go to bed and…”

Patton gasped. His little shadowling was ill!? “If you are feeling sick I can always-”

“Thanks, but…”

Patton sighed. He could tell Virgil wasn't okay, but at the same time he really didn't want to push him and make his dark, strange son feel uncomfortable. 

“Well… Just shout if you need anything.”

“Yeah. I will.”

…

It took everything in him not to call Patton back and beg him for help. Deceit had left a few hours ago, but not before causing a lot of damage. He hadn't really done a lot more than just beat Virgil up, but given all the pain Virgil was feeling he might as well have stabbed him thirty-seven times in the chest. Deceit had certainly had a lot of anger that needed to be released, judging by the amount of bruises covering Virgil’s body, and he found himself feeling extremely relieved that his friends were safe from the villain’s fury. 

Trying to ignore the amount of blood covering the walls and floor of his room, he slowly began to get up. On the off chance that Patton decided he wanted to enter Virgil’s room, it would best if he was not found lying on the floor covered in his own blood, with what he was sure was at least two broken ribs. 

Virgil knew that the deal he had made with Deceit was by no means a good one, it was actually pretty shit, but Virgil also knew that even if he managed to defeat Deceit and his ‘friends’ with Logan, Patton, and Roman, there would be casualties. As selfish as it was, Virgil wanted to keep the others safe, even if in doing so it meant that he had to endanger to city. Although his three friends would no doubt hate him if they realised he had agreed to lock them up, it was better than whatever Deceit had planned for them. 

Virgil hoped that once he had returned to Deceit he would be able to gain at least some of the villain’s trust, so that the man would let his guard enough for Virgil to… Well, probably kill him. Virgil shuddered. He hated killing people, and the idea of having to kill Deceit was especially unwelcome, because no matter what Deceit had done there was a part of Virgil that only remembered all the good things the villain had done to help him. But Virgil knew who he'd choose if it came down to Deceit or Logan, Patton and Roman. 

However, he had run into a slight problem due to Deceit deciding to bring in his other… friends. Virgil had never met them, but he had known about their existence. Deceit had previously decided to keep the city unaware of their presence, as it lulled the people into a false sense of security. As long as there were more heroes then villains, the people were relaxed, which made it easier for Deceit to manipulate things from the shadows. If the city knew that there were more villains, they would be panicked, which made Deceit’s job a lot harder. So for Deceit to call them in to help him, he must be truly desperate. Virgil would have been honoured at all the trouble Deceit was going through for him if not for the fact that he currently couldn't stand up and was finding it hard to breathe. 

For now, Virgil was stuck. He couldn't tell the three heroes anything without risking Deceit revealing just how much he had betrayed them, and he couldn't attack Deceit while the other villain’s were still out there. 

Virgil began to try and get his room back into something that wouldn't make Logan have a heart attack. Once finally managed to get his room to vaguely resemble what it had been before Deceit had decided to pay him a visit, he fell straight onto his bed. Given the fact that he had not sleep at all the previous night, he felt that he deserved some sleep. Virgil rolled other, wincing at the pain in his ribs, and closed his eyes. 

…

Virgil curled up into a ball on the floor. It was all too much for him. A week ago he had been at home with his… loving family? Well not exactly loving, but his family nonetheless. And now they had abandoned him and the only person who could help him was some random person he barely even knew. 

“Virgil?”

Speak of the devil. Virgil jumped as he looked up and saw Deceit standing the doorway, before he began to hurriedly wipe his eyes. 

“It's okay, Virgil. You're allowed to cry. Your parents just abandoned you because of something that you have no control over, you have every right to be upset.”

Virgil sobbed. “I-I’m sorry, I…”

Deceit knelt down beside him. “It's okay, Virgil. I understand.”

Virgil raised his head. “Y-You do?”

Deceit smiled grimly. “You aren't the only person in this world who has been shunned by everyone else. Some people are just different, and the world we live in doesn't accept those kinds of people. People like us, Virgil.”

“Like us?”

“Yes, Virgil. We are alike, you and I. That's why I helped you, because I saw a part of myself in you. And together we can help others like us.”

Virgil smiled at that. “Really? How?”

Deceit smiled back. “The world has the capability to change, Virgil. You and I are just going to have to give it a little… nudge, to set it in the right direction.”

… 

Virgil cried out in shock as Deceit slapped him across the face. 

“I gave you a very simple instruction, Virgil! It really shouldn't have been that hard!”

“What the hell, Deceit?! Did you just fucking hit me in the face?! What the everloving fuck!?”

Deceit raised his hand. “Would you like me to do it again?”

Virgil’s eyes widened in fear as he stepped backwards. “N-No…”

“Then answer my question.”

“L-Look, it's not my fault that weird guy in a prince costume showed up again!”

Deceit’s eyes narrowed. “So our mysterious Prince has reappeared. This is rather unfortunate. I had not thought that we would be receive this much resistance so soon. Was there anyone else?”

“Um, yeah… This time the Prince guy had these two other people with him. A nerdy one and a dude with a cardigan.”

Deceit raised his eyebrows at the descriptions. “And what were their powers?”

“Um… I think the cardigan dude could heal, and maybe make shields…? And the nerd could move stuff with his mind.”

“The telekinesis may become a problem, but the healer doesn't pose too much of a threat. Virgil?”

“Y-Yes?” Virgil asked, wary of Deceit hitting him again. He began to inch backwards as Deceit began to come towards him. “P-Please d-don't…” Virgil raised his hands up to protect his face from Deceit’s hand. He heard Deceit sigh before jumping as the villain wrapped him in a hug. 

“It's okay, Virge.” Deceit whispered as Virgil began to struggle. 

“B-But yo-”

“I know.” Deceit continued to speak to him softly and began to stroke his hair, causing Virgil to start to calm down. “I just… I just get frustrated sometimes. It was nothing more than an accident. You understand, right, Virge?”

“I-I…”

“Of course you do.”

“Um… yeah?”

“You don't believe me? I must say, Virgil, after all I've done for you, the fact that you think I would hurt you on purpose… That hurts me.”

Virgil felt his stomach drop. After everything Deceit had done to help him how could he just have…?!

“I-I’m so sorry! I… I didn't think, I… Of course you would never do that… I…”

Deceit chuckled and hugged Virgil tighter. “It’s okay, Virgil. I forgive you.”

… 

As the two villains entered Deceit’s house, Deceit turned to Vigil and smiled.”Well done today, Virgil.”

Virgil looked up in shock. “W-What do you mean?”

The villain laughed. “I mean that you did well today, of course. That's generally what ‘well done’ means.”

Virgil blushed. “Right.”

“I'm proud of you, Virgil.”

“B-But… That building. It… It collapsed! People were in there! Not all of them would have made it out! Some of them might be…”

Deceit laughed. “You see, Virgil, this is why I am the one who does the planning. You never see the big picture. This is about changing the world! A few lives are insignificant compared to all the good we are going to do! And this was a worthy sacrifice! That was about making a statement, and that's exactly what you did! And I'm proud of you.”

Virgil allowed himself a smile. “W-Well, I guess…”

“Come on, Virgil. Let's go relax for a bit.”

Virgil smiled at his friend. “What are we going to do?”

Deceit smiled back at him. “Whatever you want to do, Virgil. You've earned it.”

… 

“You. Always. Screw. Things. Up!” Deceit shouted, punctuating each word with another kick for Virgil’s stomach.

“I-I'm sorry, I…”

Deceit grabbed Virgil by his jacket and slammed him into the wall. 

“Sorry isn't good enough, Virgil! It doesn't fix your mistakes.”

“I'm sorry, I…”

“What the fuck did I just say!?” Deceit yelled, before slamming Virgil into the wall again. He then grabbed a fistful of Virgil’s hair and threw him onto the floor. “You're so fucking useless! Look at yourself! You're pathetic!” He kicked Virgil again. 

“Deceit, p-please…”

“Shut up! You deserve every minute of this, you worthless piece of shit!”

Virgil whimpered. 

“I want to hear you say it! Now!”

“I-I… I d-deserve e-every minute of t-this.” Virgil sobbed. 

“Good boy.” Deceit purred. “Again.”

Virgil hung his head. “I deserve every minute of this.”

…

Virgil woke up with tears running down his face. While having dreams of the various times Deceit had lost his temper was not an uncommon occurrence for him, it had been a while since he had thought about the good memories he had of his former friend. And it hurt to look back and realise just how much Deceit had been manipulating him. He was furious with himself! How had he never seen past Deceit’s lies and stupid fake smiles!?

“I guess I’m just stupid.” Virgil whispered, and then let out a harsh laugh. 

Well there was one thing Deceit hadn't lied about.


	23. Chapter 23

“Viiiiiiiiiiiirgil! Come on! Seriously, bro, you've been in there for ages! Don't you want food or something? Like I know you have a stash of biscuits in there because what sane person wouldn't but I'm pretty sure you need more than that to survive. And you kinda need water as well. Apparently. I mean I personally think Logan is making it up to push his extremist water agenda, but that's a problem for another time. But anyway… Are you coming?”

“You are literally the worst brother ever! I was asleep, you prat!”

Roman made his ‘offended Princey noises’. “The worst brother?! I am pretty that title falls to you mister evil villain.” Roman grinned as Virgil’s door was cracked open and his brother slipped out and walked into the main space of the apartment. Roman’s grin faltered, however, when he saw that there were dark circles under his brothers eyes, and that the younger man was definitely paler than normal, which was saying something when talking about Jack Smellington. 

“I'm pretty sure you can keep that title. Didn't you stab me in the stomach that one time?”

Virgil grinned half-heartedly at him, but Roman felt his heart drop. As if he could ever forget. For the past few days he'd been having constant nightmares about the incident. About what would have happened if he'd stabbed just a little deeper, or if Patton hadn't been able to heal Virgil in time. About what would have happened if Virgil hadn't survived. 

Roman had almost… almost killed his brother! Virgil still had the scar of it for God's sake! And even if Roman didn't have a physical scar like Virgil did, he had been scarred by the incident in other ways. It has been bad enough to know that he had almost killed someone, but to then find out it had been his brother!? It was something Roman could never forgive himself for. 

“Yo, dude, are you okay?”

Roman blinked. “What? Oh, um…”

“Listen, Roman, I was just joking about the whole stabbing thing. It's not that big a deal.”

Roman spluttered and looked at his brother incredulously. “What do you mean it's not a big deal?! Virgil, I stabbed you! I could have killed you! I…” Roman froze in horror. “I didn't even apologise to you.” He whispered in shock.

“What?”

“I-I… When I pulled you over to, well, threaten you, after Logan told you his name-”

“You were kind of shit at the threatening, by the way.” Virgil said, smirking. Roman laughed, but it didn't quite reach his eye. 

“Um, yeah. I… I said that it was a mistake and you asked me if I was apologising and I… I just changed the subject! I… I can't believe I haven't even… Virgil I am so sorry, for what I did to you. I… I've… I almost killed you, and for that I can never forgive myself, and I don't expect you to either. But I want you to know, from the depths of my heart, I am truly sorry.”

Virgil looked shocked. “I-I… I mean I kind of want to make a joke but I feel like you kind of meant that so…” Virgil trailed off awkwardly. “I um… I'm not very good with this feelings stuff, but listen man, it's chill. Seriously. Please don't, like, blame yourself. It wasn't your faul-”

Roman stared at his brother in shock. “What!? Virgil I stabbed you, okay? If… If I hurt you then it's my fault. How can you…”

Virgil blushed. “Sorry, I just… I'm kind of used to being told that it's always my faul- You know it doesn't matter. Let's just…”

Roman gaped at his brother. “Of course it matters! You just said that… Who the fuck told you…” Roman froze. “It was Deceit, wasn't it?”

“W-What? Listen, Roman, it doesn't matter-”

“Of course it matters! If Deceit hurt you and manipulated you into blaming yourself then it fucking matters!”

“He didn't… It’s… It's complicated.”

Roman growled. “Doesn't sound very complicated to me. It sounds more like I stabbed the wrong person…”

“Dude! You literally just apologised and said you felt bad and now you're threatening to stab someone else?”

Roman blinked. He guessed his brother had a point. However, he also rather liked the idea of wiping Deceit’s consistently smug smile off his face with a sword to the chest. He didn't want to kill him, not really, but hurting him? That sounded like a very good idea.

“Romano? Are you daydreaming about stabbing Deceit?”

“What? No! Don't be ridiculous!”

“Mm hmm?”

Roman sighed. “Virgil, you still haven't told any of us anything about your time with Deceit. I get that it may be bad memories, or maybe it's not and that's part of the problem, but you can't just hide it all away and try and forget about it. It's not healthy. Patton has a friend who's a therapist, so maybe you could talk to him! Or maybe you could t-”

“I'm not… I'm not having this conversation right now. Let's just… Where are Patton and Logan?”

“Er…” Roman hesitated, but acknowledged that he was unlikely to be able to get any more information out of his brother. “In the kitchen.”

“Great. Let's go join them.”

Roman sighed and followed his brother into the kitchen. He knew that there were things that Virgil hadn't told Patton, Logan and himself about his time with Deceit, but the more he saw the differences between the brother he knew from his childhood and who Virgil was now, the more he worried about what Deceit had done to him. And what Deceit would do, when the cowardly snake finally decided to show his face. 

… 

“I just… he opened up to us, Logan! He told us his name! I mean… I guess I thought he was finally going to be a proper part of our group but… Now he's shutting himself away again! I don't understand! Did we do something to upset him? Did…”

“Patton…” Logan sighed. “”Virgil is a complicated individual, and we are still in the dark about a lot of the things that have happened to him. We cannot presume to know everything about him when we know very little about the things he has experienced.”

Logan sighed. He knew that Patton was very worried about their new friend, but he was wary of prying too far. Virgil was clearly still having problems with completely trusting the three of them, and Logan didn't want to hinder their progress by invading Virgil’s privacy. But at the same time the hero found himself slightly concerned, as Patton had been right in saying that Virgil had been relaxing and becoming less closed off. So what had led him to shut himself in his room for over a day and refuse to talk to any of them? 

Logan released a small sigh of relief as he saw that Virgil had entered the kitchen. Although he couldn't help notice just how pale his friend was, and the fact that Virgil clearly hadn't been sleeping well. 

“Virgil.” Logan acknowledged him with a nod of his head. “It's good to see that you are out of your room.”

“Hey Virgil! Hey Roman!” Patton grinned, before turning to Logan. “Why didn't you say hi to Roman?”

Logan adjusted his glasses. “I do not communicate with thieves.”

Roman groaned. “Seriously!? It was a teaspoon! A teaspoon!!”

“Yes, thief, I am very well aware of how much you stole.”

Virgil sighed and sat down on the counter, causing Logan to shake his head at his lack of regard for what is and is not a chair. “Guys, it's fucking jam. You need to chill.”

“I must correct you on that, dear brother. It is not a jam, it is a way of life!”

Logan nodded. “I must agree with the thief on this one.”

Roman rounded on Logan. “You don't even have any proof that it was me! It could have been Patton!”

Patton’s eyes widened. “It wasn't me!”

Roman stalked over and looked him in the eyes. “You were home before Logan and I, so you definitely would have had the time…”

Patton chuckled. “Well it seems like I'm in a bit of a jam!”

Logan sighed. “Patton…”

Patton turned to Logan and pouted. “I see my attempt to make you laugh was unsuccessful.” He grinned cheekily. “But then again it is a berry hard task to accomplish, and if you actually did laugh at one of my puns we would all find it kind of jarring. I mean… My mouth would be ajar. Even if it was smearly a small smile.”

“Loving the alliteration, Pat!” Roman grinned, before high-fiving with friend. Logan took a deep breathe as he tried not to do anything rash. 

“I might scream.” He muttered.

“But you can't, because your volume’s too Lo-”

“Don't you dare!”

“-gan!”

“You're dead to me.”

Patton giggled. “At least I wasn't the one who stole your Crofters!”

Logan turned back to Roman, once again reminded of Roman’s sins. 

“Hey, don't look at me! There is still no proof that it wasn't Patton. He said he didn't take it, but then again, how did he know that some of it was missing in the first place? Suspicious.”

Logan raised his eyebrows. “You literally just said that some of it was missing about five minutes ago.”

“That doesn't mean that… It wasn't… Maybe it was Vir-”

“Don't even think about it.” Virgil said, raising his hand to block Roman’s face. “I'm not being dragged into your desperate attempt to find a scapegoat for your theft.” Virgil paused, and then added. “Any attempt you make to lay the blame on me will be fruitless.”

Logan spun around to stare at Virgil incredulously, before groaning as Patton slipped Virgil a dollar. He had thought that Virgil had more sense than to engage in bad word play, but it appeared that Patton had managed to corrupt him. Logan stared at his jar of jam. 

“Crofters. You're the only one that understands me.”


	24. Chapter 24

“Enjoying yourself, Virgil?”

Virgil flinched, before glancing up from his phone and glaring at the supervillain standing at the end of his bed. He had been having such a good day, too. He had watched Steven Universe with Patton, Roman and (an extremely reluctant) Logan, laughed at the various screaming over jam, and he had somehow managed to spend time with the three heroes all at once without trying to kill any of them. It had been fun. Although of course he would have enjoyed himself a lot more if he hadn't had Deceit on his mind the whole time. And now the snake-faced douchebag had decided to waltz into his room and ruin the rest of his day. 

“Fuck off.” Virgil muttered. 

Deceit chuckled. “I am hurt that you would speak to me in that way after all I've done for you!”

Virgil growled. “Oh yes, you have been so generous. I can't decide what I should thank you for first. The fact that you ruined my life, the fact that you are about to kidnap my friends and lock them up, the fact that you are forcing me into doing your evil bidding or the fact thanks to your visit yesterday I still can't walk properly! What agony I am in! And this is not referring to the large amount of outer pain that I have you to thank for, I am talking about the inner pain from me being unsure how to express my gratitude to you properly. I mean my first choice would be a punch in the face, but if I fucked up your face anymore you'd be torturing my friends just by being in their presence. And that kinda goes against our whole agreement thing…”

Deceit laughed. “I had not realised how much I missed your mildly irritating sarcasm, Virgil. And your increase in confidence has only added to your comedic brilliance. There really is nothing equal to your wit.”

Virgil snorted. “Did you just criticise me for being sarcastic while being sarcastic yourself?”

Deceit smirked at him. “I'm an evil villain, Virgil. I think I'm allowed to be a hypocrite.”

“Hey, Virge? Are you talking to yourself or something, because I swear I can hear talking in there? We haven't accidently driven you insane, have we?” Virgil froze as he heard Roman’s voice from behind the door. 

“No need to sound so eager about it.” Having heard himself speak without having actually said anything, Virgil turned around to glare at Deceit, and saw his own face smirking back at him. Deceit put a finger to his, well Virgil’s, lips and continued to talk. “I didn't realise my possible loss of sanity would be such a good thing.”

Roman laughed. “Well it would be an excellent sentence starter.”

“Yeah, totally.” Virgil interrupted before Deceit could take his place again. 

“You don't sound very convinced, but trust me, it would be awesome. You know, like ‘Hi! Would you like to be my friend? Trust me, it will be fun, and it's almost entirely risk free! I mean I turned a guy insane once, but the likelihood of such an incident occurring again is quite small’! Also can I come in or can you come out, because talking through the door is kind of weird.”

“Sure.” Deceit replied and began to move towards the door. Virgil began to panic. There was absolutely no way Virgil was letting Deceit have a full blown conversation with his brother while wearing his face. Virgil grabbed Deceit’s arm in an attempt to emphasise just how much this situation was not happening, but Deceit used his other arm to grab Virgil’s wrist. Deceit then began to twist it, causing Virgil to let out a gasp of pain. 

“Virgil? Are you alright?”

“Of course.” Deceit replied. “I just stubbed my toe.” 

Virgil remained completely still. Deceit leaned in, still holding Virgil’s arm in a way that meant if he twisted it any further, Virgil was sure it would break. 

“I thought you promised to do what I say, Virgil.” Deceit whispered in his ear. Virgil averted his eyes. “Well? I don't want to have to break your arm but I will if I have to. Just promise not to scream too loud. ”

“Virgil are you sure you're okay? I'm probably imagining it but it really sounds like you're talking to someone? Do I need to come in?”

Deceit’s face twisted into a look of extreme annoyance. “I'm fine, Roman. I'll be out in a minute. Just go into the living room or something and I'll meet you there.”

“I… I could just, um… you know… come into your room.”

Deceit smirked as he eyed a patch of dried blood on one of the walls. “I'm afraid it's a bit messy right now. And I wouldn't mind some food. Just give me a minute.”

“Why? So you can put your weird eyeshadow on?”

“Exactly.”

Roman snorted, and Virgil could almost hear his brother’s eye roll. Once Roman’s footsteps had died away, Deceit dropped Virgil’s arm. 

“What the hell, Deceit?” Virgil whisper-yelled, rubbing his wrist. 

Deceit smirked at him. “I'm not sure what you're asking me, Virgil.”

Virgil growled. “Um… maybe pretending to be me! What the fuck!?”

“Ah yes, speaking of which I should probably be going off to continue my conversation with your brother.”

Virgil stood in front of the door to his room. “Yeah, no. That's not happening.”

Deceit laughed. “Need I remind you which of the two of us is in control right now.” He walked over to Virgil, before calmly drawing a small knife from his pocket, causing Virgil to tense.

“W-W...Why e-even b-bother?” Virgil stuttered, both his eyes trained on the knife Deceit was fiddling with.

“Because it's fun.” Deceit laughed, as he began to walk up the Virgil, causing him to back away until he was pressed against the door. He lifted up his knife and held it to Virgil’s throat, causing Virgil to tense up and hold his breath. Deceit smirked. “In case you haven't noticed yet, Virgil, I really enjoy making you squirm. This is just a convenient way to do it. And I would also quite like to see if I can get into big brother’s head. I want to know more about him, given that he's going to be an honoured guest of mine very soon.”

Virgil was seething, but he didn't speak as he continued to eye the knife in Deceit’s hand. Logically he knew that Deceit wasn't going to kill him, because he was much more useful alive. But that of course didn't stop him having a huge amount of anxiety due to the blade being held to his throat. He had chosen his villain name for reason after all.

“You don't have a choice in the matter, Virgil. So unless you want a stab wound or a broken wrist, both of which I am more than happy to give you, I suggest get out of my way. Okay?”

Virgil let out a shaky breath. “I-I… I mean I would let you out but you are currently holding a knife to my throat so I'm not too keen on the idea of moving right now.”

Deceit laughed again, before removing the knife from Virgil’s neck and gently pushing him aside. 

“I'll let you know how it goes”, Deceit smirked at him, before he turned and left the room, leaving the door to slam in Virgil’s face. 

… 

Roman sighed dramatically as his brother finally entered the room. 

“Sweet cheese pastry, you took forever! Why did it take you so long to come out?”

Virgil rolled his eyes and sat down on the sofa. “Was that a gay joke?”

Roman grinned, before tilting his head in confusion. Something felt slightly off. Then he realised. Virgil was actually sitting properly. “So what took you so long? Listening to that PG13 music of yours again?”

“No. I was listening to ABBA.”

Roman did a double take. “What?! Wait is that are joke? Or did you actually…? I am confused…”

“When are you not confused?” Virgil laughed. 

Roman narrowed his eyes. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing.” Virgil said, smirking. Roman couldn't help but feel hurt. Was Virgil saying that he was stupid? Did he really mean it or was he just making a joke? 

“Anyway, Roman. How is your acting going?”

Roman grinned. “Really great! I mean I've been doing lots of auditions lately and they're going really well! There is this particular part that I auditioned for a few days ago that I really hope it get! It's JD, you know, from Heathers. And he has such great songs and it's such a great part! And the show as a whole is really awesome! So at the moment I'm just waiting a reply, but I'm really excited!”

Virgil nodded hesitantly. “Yeah. I'm… I'm sure you'll be great.”

Roman’s heart dropped. “You don't… sound very sure.”

“Well I don't know, Roman. I mean JD is a very hard part to play. And it's the male lead. Are you sure that you are up for that?”

“Well… Yeah. I mean it will be a challenge but…”

“And I wouldn't get your hopes up too soon. I mean you might think that the auditions went well, but sometimes you can view things rather… optimistically.”

Roman felt like he was going to cry. He knew that Virgil was right, and that he shouldn't get excited about any of the roles before he knew if he had been cast, but Virgil just sounded so… sure that he wasn't going to get them. “I mean… I guess…”

“I just don't want you to get your heart broken, that's all. I'm just being a good brother.” Virgil frowned. “I didn't… I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything. But I mean I guess you would assume that, wouldn't you. You always think the worst when it comes to what I do.”

Roman’s eyes widened. Had he really just gone back to assuming everything Virgil did was negative, after all the promises he'd made to Virgil and to himself that he would never treat his brother like a villain again? “Shit! I'm so sorry, Virge! I didn't… I didn't mean to make it come across like that…”

“It's okay, Roman.” Virgil chuckled. “I'm just looking out for you. I'm going to go to bed now, but I'll see you tomorrow.”

Roman sighed, and began to head back to his room. Something had felt off with his conversation with his brother. But was Virgil actually acting strangely, or was Roman just being a bit of an idiot? Maybe he was just confused. After all, he was always a bit ‘confused’. 

… 

Virgil sat up as soon as Deceit came back into his room. 

“Well, that was fun.”

“What did you do?”

Deceit laughed. “Why must you always assume the worst of me? We merely had a nice little chat.”

Virgil growled. “If I find out you've hurt him in any way whatsoever I will take that stupid little knife of yours and carve your fucking heart out.”

“Of course you will.” Deceit chuckled, but Virgil had seen the slight widening of the villain’s eyes. He knew that Deceit could tell if someone was lying, which also meant the villain could see that he was dead serious. He would not hesitate to stab the bastard the moment he dared to lay a single hand on any of his friends, and it was nice to see that Deceit knew that.


	25. Chapter 25

“So…” Logan began once the four friends had sat down to breakfast the following morning, “We should probably talk about Virgil and Deceit.”

Logan tilted his head in confusion as Virgil spluttered into his cup of water. “W-What about me and Deceit?”

“Well, as you know, Patton, Roman and I fight against him. And as the time that is usually between each one of his, and previously your, attacks has almost come to an end, it is safe to say that we can expect him to act again soon.”

Virgil nodded cautiously. “OK… And…”

“And so the question has to be asked about exactly what you plan to do. You are evidently no longer on his side, as shown when you helped me escape, but whether or not you want to join us in fighting him is another matter.”

Virgil looked down at his plate, refusing to meet Logan’s eye. Sensing his reluctance, Logan turned to Patton for help. 

“We understand that you may be a bit hesitant, kiddo. The two of you used to be friends, after all. There is not pressure for you t-”

“No.” Virgil interjected. 

“No…?” Roman asked.

“No. We weren't… We weren't friends, okay? We… Deceit is a lot of things, but a friend is not one of them.”

Logan eyed his friend curiously. Virgil’s extreme reaction to his past relationship with Deceit was certainly not something to be overlooked. He had of course suspected that Deceit was the real power behind the two villains from the beginning, but from Virgil’s reaction to the idea of the two of them being friends it was clear that there was an even bigger power imbalance than Logan had previously anticipated. 

“What was that about?” Roman muttered. 

“I just…” Virgil sighed. “He isn't- He wasn't my friend, okay? I mean, I thought he was. He took me in and looked after me and everything. But he never actually cared about me. He just used for me for my powers. And it hurts that it took me so long to realise that.”

There was a moment of silence, before Logan decided to break it. “I am sorry that this happened to you, Virgil. I wish that we had met earlier, so that you had not had to turn to Deceit.” 

“And I wish that I had been a better brother.” Roman muttered. 

“Hell no!” Logan jumped as Virgil banged his fist on the table. “You are not blaming yourself for this! It's my fault that I let Deceit manipulate me, so don't dare try and-”

“But I didn't do anything to help you! I could of-”

“No! Absolutely not. Self-deprecation is my job!”

“What?” Patton asked. 

“I talk bad about myself.” Virgil clarified before Logan could provide Patton with a definition. 

“I WILL PHYSICALLY FIGHT YOU!”

“Okay…” Virgil muttered as Patton mimed ‘I've got my eye on you’.

“Nobody talks about my child like that.”

“I feel the need to interject and remind you both that the blame for what happened lies only on Deceit. He is the one who manipulated Virgil, so the fault lies with neither one of you.”

Virgil rolled his eyes but gave Logan a small smile. “Thanks, nerd.”

“Well? What do you say, Virgil?” Logan asked, attempting to get the conversation back on track. 

“Um… yeah. Sure, I'll… I'll join you guys, or whatever...”

“Fantastic!” Roman leapt off his chair. “With the four of us united as one Jack the Fibber doesn't stand a chance!”

“Yeah…” Virgil muttered. 

“Perfect. Firstly, is there anything you can tell us anything about Deceit’s tactics?”

“Oh, um… okay. I mean he never used to tell me about a lot of it because he knew I was too stupid to understand any of it, but-”

“Virgil.” Logan interjected. “You are most definitely not stupid. And I would know. I deal with a lot of stupid people everyday. And I mean a lot. And you are most certainly not one of them.”

Virgil rolled his eyes, causing Logan to sigh. It was clear his message wasn't getting through, which angered him, because in the short time he had known Virgil he had very clearly seen just how intelligent and perceptive the young man was. 

“Of course you're not stupid, kiddo!”

“You do realise I didn't even finish school right?”

“Well maybe you would have if our ‘parents’ weren't such pieces of shit.” Roman muttered. 

“Not finishing school in no way means you are stupid. People leave school for all sorts of reasons.”

“Whatever.” Virgil dismissed. Logan sighed in resignation and gestured for Virgil to continue, as it was evident that none of them were going to get any further on the subject. 

“Anyway, back to Deceit’s tactics… I mean the main thing is that he learns from his mistakes. And he almost never does the same thing twice.”

Logan nodded as Virgil confirmed many of his previous observations. “I had rather hoped you wouldn't say that. I assume you don't know much about what he plans to do next?”

Virgil looked around at the three of them. “Um, no… Not a clue.”

“Well, with Virgil on our side his is both heavily outnumbered and out matched. As long as no one does anything particularly stupid,” Here he turned to stare at Roman, “I am confident we can pull this off.”

“Yeah! Go team Roman!” Roman yelled, leaping up onto his chair. 

“We are not going to be called team Roman.” Virgil growled. 

“Uh! Rude.” Roman said, dramatically waving his arm before moving it towards his heart, causing him to fall backwards off the chair and crash onto the floor.

Patton giggled. 

“Never fear, for your brave and noble Prince is unharmed!” Roman yelled, jumping up triumphantly. He then went to sit down, which Logan used as an excellent opportunity to push his chair backwards using his telekinesis. 

“What the hell!” Roman screamed as he fell to the floor again. 

Logan smirked. “While I do not typically involve myself in schoolyard pranks such as this, I felt the need to respond to your irritatingly childish behaviour with something equally childish.” 

Virgil smirked at him, before raising his hand up for a high-five, causing Roman to make various noises of protest before grumpily sitting back in his seat. Logan awkwardly reached forward and attempted to high-five his friend, before regretting it when he heard the sound of a photo being taken. 

“I have found my new phone background!” Patton said, grinning maniacally, causing Logan to sigh. 

Virgil smiled back at him, before looking down at his plate. 

“You okay there, kiddo?” Patton asked Virgil. Logan turned to look at Virgil more closely, but did not see anything particularly off. However, Patton tended to be much better at reading people's emotions than Logan was, so he trusted Patton’s judgement that something was wrong. 

“Y-Yeah… I'm fine.”

“You don't really… seem that fine. Is there something wrong?”

“I'm fine.”

“Are you sure? What's wrong, Virgil? T-”

“Nothing!” Virgil yelled, causing Patton to jump. “Shit, sorry… I'm fine. I just… Don't…” Virgil sighed. “Don't underestimate him. Deceit… He's clever, okay? He’s clever and he’s cunning and he's powerful and he's always one step ahead. So… So you guys have to keep your guards up, okay?”

Logan met Virgil’s eyes. It almost felt as though Virgil was trying to warn Logan about something, but he couldn't quite determine what it was about.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry I haven't posted a new chapter for a while, but school has started back up now with double the homework and triple the stress! So that's great. Anyway on with the chapter. I hope you like it.

“Goodnight, Virgil! Don't stay up on your phone for too long!” Patton yelled as Virgil made his way to his bedroom. 

“It is bold of you to try, Padre, but I doubt that dark and stormy night over there even understands the concept of sleeping at a reasonable time.” Roman laughed. 

“While Virgil may not be very sensible when it comes to his sleep schedule, I am sure that he can still understand the concept of a proper amount of sleep.”

“Not what he meant, nerd!” Virgil yelled, before slipping into his room. “Goodnight!” He slammed his door. 

“Well, that was tedious. I swear if I have to see one more second of disgustingly sweet interactions between you and your ‘friends’, I might throw up.”

“Fuck.” Virgil sighed as he saw Deceit reclining on his bed, before quickly turning on some music so that no one would hear their conversation. 

“Not my name, but it's good to see you too, Virge.”

“Are you here for any particular reason, or do you just feel like being a dick.”

Deceit chuckled. “Sounds fun, but no. I'm here on business, actually.”

Virgil froze. “Oh?”

“It has taken me ages to find something strong enough to keep your brother locked up without him being able to break it with the giant inconvenience known as his superstrength, but I am now satisfied, and as I have… plans that I want to put into motion, I am afraid your little vacation has come to an end.”

Virgil turned away. 

“I do hope you aren't having second thoughts about our little… arrangement, Virgil.”

“No! No, I'm not. I just…”

“Yes…?” Deceit said in a manner that clearly demonstrated that he didn't care. 

“Can we just get this over with?”

“I didn't realise you were so eager.” Deceit chuckled. 

Virgil glared at him. “So what do I have to do?”  
… 

After a long night of lying in his bed wallowing in guilt and and self-hatred, Virgil finally deemed it the right time to put Deceit’s plan into action. The villain had thankfully not hung around in Virgil’s room the night before, but Virgil knew that Deceit was still watching him invisibly from somewhere in the flat. Which of course did nothing to decrease Virgil’s anxiety about what he had to do. 

Virgil slowly walked into the kitchen, looking around to make sure none of his friends were there. He couldn't believe he was doing this. While Virgil had no doubts that what he was doing was the best possible option, as there was no way any of them would be able to hide from Deceit now that he knew who they were, that didn't make it any less horrible. They had let him into their home and now he was betraying them. Some friend he was. 

Grabbing a bowl, he proceeded to begin making what he hoped would turn out to be pancakes. If he was going to drug his friends, he might as well give them some breakfast to go with it.

When the batter was done, he reached into his pocket and slowly drew out the bottle of whatever shady drug Deceit had obtained in a way that had definitely not been legal. 

“I can't believe I'm doing this.” He muttered. Taking a few deep breathes, he quickly stirred the drug into the mixture before he lost his nerve. 

“Fuck.” He whispered. “And the worst friend in the world award, goes to…”

“Virgil!” 

“Shit!” Virgil screamed, jumping at the sudden noise, before hurriedly stuffing empty bottle back into his pocket once he had seen that it was Patton who had just come through the door. “O-Oh, hey…”

“Are you okay, kiddo? You're up very early.” 

Technically, Virgil was up very late, as he had never actually gone to sleep in the first place. But it wasn't as though he was going to tell Patton that. 

“Y-Yeah… I-I was just… you know… breakfast…”

Patton grinned at him. “That's so sweet of you, kiddo!”

“Y-Yeah well… I saw that you always had to do it and… And thought that maybe I would do it for you today instead…?”

Patton ran over and hugged him, causing Virgil to tense. “You are amazing! Thank you so much!”

“Y-Yeah… I mean it might be shit so I wouldn't get your hopes up just yet…” Virgil said with a shaky laugh. 

Patton giggled. “I'm sure it will be great! And besides, it's the thought that counts. Are you sure you don't want a hand,though?”

N-No… No, it's all good… You just… relax…”

“Okie dokie!” Patton grinned, before skipping to the sofa and turning on the TV. “Thanks, kiddo!”

“N-No… No problem.” Virgil felt like he was going to be sick.

“Good morning Patton, Virgil.” Logan said for the doorway of the kitchen, causing Virgil to jump. Again. 

“H-Hey d-dude… W-What… um… What are you up to?”

“I’m here to eat breakfast. Although I would have thought that would be fairly obvious given the time of day and the usual function of the room I have just entered.”

“Right… W-Well, breakfast is almost ready s-so… like… yeah…”

“I'll go wake Roman up!” Patton yelled and sprung up from the sofa. 

“Good luck.” Logan muttered, rubbing a spot on the side of his head. 

“Bad memories, nerd?”

Logan sighed. “The last time I tried to wake Roman up he punched me in the face, while asleep I might add, and when I proceeded to attempt to drag him out of his bed using my telekinesis he threw his bedside table at me. And then went back to sleep.”

Virgil didn't know whether to laugh or be sympathetic. He opted for laughter. “Are we sure that Patton is going to be okay then, or will he need back-up?”

“I have found that Patton’s shield abilities make disturbing Roman’s ‘beauty sleep’ much less hazardous.”

“Fair enough.”

“Greetings my fellow companions, it is I! You can now feel joy and happiness once again now that the light of your life has re-entered your world.”

“I do believe Roman is awake.” Logan muttered. 

“Really?! What gave it away?” Virgil muttered, before giving Logan a small smile. 

“Now what's this I heard about breakfast, Virgil?”

The smile on Virgil’s face dropped. “Oh yeah… right…” Virgil quickly turned away from the three heroes and finished preparing the breakfast. “W-Well… H-Here you go… I guess…”

“Thanks, bro!”

“I'll be right back…” Virgil muttered before running into the bathroom. 

“Shit!” He whispered. “Fuck! I can't do this!”

The three of them had never done anything wrong, all they had tried to do was try to help people! And then they had taken Virgil in and treated him like their friend, and all this time he had been plotting against them… 

“Well at least they won't find out…” Virgil whispered with a harsh laugh. He looked up and glared at himself in the mirror. “I mean, how fucking selfish can you be to want to kidnap innocent people and make them think you're still on their side just because you're too pathetic to let go of the fake friendship you built with them.” Hr let out a sob. “I guess that turning over a new leaf thing didn't exactly go to plan, did it?” 

Virgil’s voice began to get louder, until he was basically screaming at himself in the mirror. “But with someone as useless as you there was never any chance of you being anything other than someone who fucks everything up! Y-”

“You okay in there, Virge? Because we can kind of all hear you shouting…” Virgil flinched as he heard his brother's voice through the door. 

“Oh yeah. Yeah I'm totally fine. I'm fucking superb right now.”

“Really? Because that sounded a bit sarcastic.”

“Really? I hadn't noticed.”

Roman laughed. “Okay, well you can keep shouting at the toilet for a bit if you want. I'm going to and finish breakfast. Which is great, by the way, so thanks for that. But just before I go, are you absolutely sure you're okay?”

Virgil paused for a second, wishing that he could unlock the door and explain everything that was going on to his brother and work with the three heroes to take Deceit and his ‘friends’ down. But he couldn't. Because if he became the reason one of them was killed he could never forgive himself. “Yeah… Yeah, I'm fine.”

“Well if you're sure…” His brother lingered a bit, as if hoping that Virgil would say something else, before wandering back to the kitchen. 

Virgil sat down on the floor of the bathroom and curled into a ball. A part of him wanted to go outside and be with his friends one last time before… before he abducted them, took them away from their family and friends and let Deceit lock them up for the rest of their lives. But due to obvious reasons he was finding it quite hard to act like they were still his friends… no, that wasn't quite right. They were still his friends, and they always would be. But he wasn't their friend anymore. They just didn't know that they should hate him yet. And he wanted them to keep believing the lie for as long as possible. 

He flinched when he heard a knock on the door. 

“H-Hey, kiddo… Sorry to bother you… I'm just… I thought I'd let you know that I'm going to lie down for a bit… I-I don't feel so good…”

“I'm sorry.” Virgil sobbed. 

“Hey, it's not your fault, kiddo. I'm just feeling a bit… B-But I-I'll be up later… You said we could watch some more Steven Universe today and I don't plan on letting you down.”

“I-I can't wait…”

… 

Virgil remained on the floor with his eyes squeezed shut, trying not to think about what was going on outside. Eventually he heard a sharp knock on the door.

“You better not be in there crying like a little baby, Virgil.” Virgil’s heart sunk as he heard Deceit’s voice through the door.

“A-Are they all…”

“They are all fast asleep and perfectly unharmed.”

Virgil slowly unlocked the door.

“You look like shit.” Deceit smirked as Virgil emerged from the bathroom. 

Virgil glared at the villain. “Yeah? Well, excuse me if I got a bit distressed about betraying my friends!”

“Must you be so over-dramatic all the time, Virgil?”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Says the Disney villain.”

Deceit laughed coldly, causing Virgil to tense. “You are just so much fun when you try to fight me, Virge.”

“If you speak to me in that fucking condescending tone one more time…!”

“Shut up, Virgil.” Deceit waved his hand dismissively. “We're done now.”

Virgil snarled at him. “I'm not your   
fucking property, you asshole!”

“Virgil…” Deceit began in a warning tone. 

“No! This i-”

“You are trying my patience, Virgil.” Deceit spat through gritted teeth. “As I have mentioned before, I have a particular plan that I would very much like to carry out tomorrow, and it would go much more efficiently if you were not severely injured, so if you would be so kind as to stop aggravating me that would be much appreciated.”

“Fu-”

Deceit spun around and slammed Virgil into the wall. “I swear to God Virgil if you don't SHUT UP, I-” Deceit let Virgil go and took a breathe. “See what you made me do? I'm trying to be nice, Virgil, but you're making it awful difficult.”

“I didn't think it was possible for you to be nice-” Virgil began to mutter. 

Deceit took another breathe. “I cannot hear what you are saying right now but if I hear one more sarcastic comment coming out of your mouth I will grab whichever one of your friends is nearest and stab them in the fucking shoulder!”

Virgil swallowed down a retort. While he honestly didn't care if Deceit did anything to him as long as he got to wipe that smug smile of the douchebag’s, he was not letting Deceit touching any of his friends. 

“Are you done with your little tantrum now? Good. Let's grab your… ‘friends’, and get out of here. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, Anxiety.”


	27. Chapter 27

When Roman woke up, it was dark. And given that the last time he remembered anything it has been morning, he had a feeling that wasn't a good thing. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw that he was in a small room with no windows or furnishings. And that he was chained to the wall. 

“Well, fuck.” Roman said, as he tried the pull the chains from the wall, and then to snap them in half, neither of which worked. His breathing began to get faster as he looked around. Why couldn't he get out of these?! He tugged on the chains more frantically. How had he ended up here? What was going on?! 

It was then that his eyes settled on Logan and Patton, who were both still unconscious. At least he wasn't alone, he thought, as he began to breathe more calmly. That was until he noticed that their group seemed to be one person short. Where was Virgil? 

“Hey!” Roman whispered. “Hey! Logan? Patton? Are you guys awake?” His friends remained unresponsive. “Wait, why am I whispering?”

“Logan? Patton? Hey! Logan! Patton!” Roman sighed. His two friends had began to stir but they still showed no signs of actually being awake. 

“OI! LOGAN! PATTON! WAKE UP AND SMELL THE HUMMUS!”

“Wake up and smell the what?”

Roman turned to see Logan was finally awake. “It's an Aladdin reference.”

“W-What’s going on, kiddos? Where are we?”

“Morning!” Roman said, slightly hysterically, as he turned around to see that Patton was also awake. “Well, I'm not sure if it is actually good morning or if it's another time of day because I have no idea what's going on right now because we're being held prisoner in a creepy room and…!”

“Roman, calm down.” 

Roman stared at Logan incredulously. “Calm down? Calm down?! CALM DOWN?! CALM DOWN?!!!!”

“Roman…”

“I AM COMPLETELY CALM!” 

“I… What happened? How are we here? The last thing I remember we were having breakfast. And I didn't feel very well. I still don't feel very well…”

“Well, Patton, I do believe I have the answers. Or some of them anyway, so if Roman could refrain from screaming for a few minutes that would be most helpful.”

Roman glared at Logan. “Well then, nerd, if you would be so kind as to enlighten us about what is going on, that would be great!”

“Well, unfortunately, I recognise this room quite well.”

“How?” Patton asked. He looked terrified, and Roman wanted nothing more then to bound over to his friend, give him a huge hug and then take him far away from this place. Like he was supposed to do. But some hero he was if he couldn't even keep his best friends safe. And his brother safe. Why wasn't Virgil here?! 

Logan sighed. “This was where Deceit kept me when I was captured by him a few weeks ago.”

Roman’s heart dropped. While there weren't a lot of other reasons for why they were chained up in a small, dark room, and admittedly not a single other reason would actually have be a good thing, Roman had still been rather hopeful the reason they were here would not be because they had been captured by Deceit. Unfortunately, that was not the case. 

“B-But… How did he find us?”

Roman looked to Patton and flinched once again when he saw how scared his friend looked. He wished he could protect him, he wished he could protect all of them and he could get them out of the horrible situation they had found themselves in, but he didn't know how. 

“So what do we do, Logan?” Roman asked, trying to sound more confident than he felt. 

“I-I… I don't know, Roman.” Logan said, with a desperate look in his eyes. It was clear that Logan was just as scared as Roman and Patton were, he was just trying not to show it. Both of them turned around to look at Patton as he let out a small whimper at Logan’s admission. 

“But I'm sure I'll think of something soon. It will be okay, Patton, I promise.” Logan said, in a desperate attempt to reassure his friend. 

“Y-Yeah… W-Wait, guys, where's Virgil? Why isn't he here?!”

Roman’s heart sunk as he was reminded once again that he had no idea where his brother was, and whether he was in any way okay. 

“I don't know, Patton, but I am sure Virgil will be fine.” Logan smiled thinly,continuing to try and reassure Patton, but it didn't look as though he was very convinced himself. 

“Y-You don't know that, though! You've admitted before that D-Deceit will be angry at Virgil because he set you free! What if he's dead! What if Deceit’s hurt him or-”

“STOP IT!” Roman yelled, trying to escape from images of Virgil bleeding out somewhere, wondering why his big brother wasn't there to save him. Although of course he didn't have to imagine it, Roman thought bitterly, he had seen Virgil bleeding out on the ground before.“S-Sorry, Pat, I didn't mean to shout, I just… I don't want to think about it…”

There was a moment of silence as the three heroes all tried not think about what could have happened to their friend. 

Logan looked up and met Roman’s eyes, his face unreadable. “Of course, there's always the alternative.”

Roman tilted his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“As in there may be a different reason why he's not here.”

“Yeah, I got that. But what could that be?”

Logan took a deep breathe. “Well… I don't want to… accuse him of anything…”

“What's there to accuse him of?”

“I… It's just that we don't know how Deceit could have caught us or how he could have found us in the first place, but if Virgil was-”

Roman’s eyes lit up with fury. “How dare you!”

“You have to admit that with his past and t-”

“HOW DARE YOU!!” Roman screamed, looking like he wanted to charge over to the over side of the room and punch Logan several times in the face. “After everything he's done for us! For you! Unless you've forgotten who let you out the first time you were here? He could be being tortured right now and you actually have the nerve to-”

“Yes, he could be, but if you look at the facts it does point to-” Logan began desperately. 

“I can't believe you would even THINK something like this right now!”

“Oh yes and you aren't being a complete hypocrite right now! Need I remind you how you acted when he first joined us!? And now you have the audacity to yell at me for being CAUTIOUS!? Virgil is my FRIEND!!! The last thing I want is for what I'm saying to be correct, but looking at it objectively, the facts do lead to the possibility that-”

“Yeah, and you are just all about being objective, aren't you? Well, maybe for once you could stop being a robot with no feelings and start acting like you actually care about any of us!!”

“Stop it! Both of you!” Logan and Roman both turned to see Patton curled up in a ball with tears streaming down his face. “I-I don't understand. What's going on? Why are you yelling?”

“Patton…” Logan began. 

“Don't you dare.” Roman glared at Logan. There was no way he was letting Logan tell Patton that he believed the person Patton basically saw as his son was actually… 

“We are sorry if we caused you distress, Patton. Although as I am apparently an emotionless robot who doesn't care about his friends I can understand if you don't think my apology was very sincere. ”

Roman flinched, realising that he had gone too far. “Logan, I…”

“You what?” Logan said, his face void of any expression. 

“I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”

“No, you shouldn't have.” Patton murmured. 

“It is perfectly fine, Roman. If that is how you feel, then-”

“No! No, it is not fine. I should never have said that to you. I'm sorry.”

Logan looked surprised. “Oh. Well, thank you, I guess…”

“Oh, sorry, am I interrupting something?”

They all fell silent as they saw Deceit had just opened the door and walked in. “So nice to have you back, Logan. And as for you, Patton and Roman, welcome to my home. It's good to see you all again. I hope everything is up to your expectations.”

The three of them flinched as they heard Deceit say their names. 

“W-Where's Virgil?” Patton asked softly. 

Deceit laughed and moved further into the room. “Sorry, what was that?” He said slowly, like he was speaking to a child. 

“Where's… Where’s Virgil? W-What have you d-done with him?! Why isn't he here?!” Patton said, raising his voice as he talked. 

“Aw, you're worried about him. Isn't that just adorable.”

“Where is he?!” Patton yelled hysterically. 

Deceit laughed. “Oh don't worry, Patton. Virgil’s… Virgil’s fine.” 

“Is that so?” Roman said, trying to drag Deceit’s attention away from Patton, who looked terrified at being in such close proximity to the villain while being so helpless. “Because when a villain says that someone is fine while also doing a cliche evil laugh, the person tends to be very much not fine.” 

Roman shrank up against the wall as Deceit came closer. While he had wanted Deceit away from Patton, he also really didn't want the villain anywhere him. 

“I see sarcasm and witty insults runs in the family.”

Roman’s eyes widened. “How do you know…?”

“How do I know what? That Virgil’s your baby brother. Well I'm afraid that's my little secret. Although while we're on the subject, tell me one thing, Roman.” Deceit leaned forward and looked right into Roman’s eyes. “How does it feel knowing that when your brother was alone and didn't know were to go, he came running to me instead of going to you for help. It's funny, really. He didn't even know me, he'd only met me once, but he still picked me over you. I mean that has got to hurt.”

Roman looked away. 

Deceit sighed. “You're no fun. Come on, Roman, doesn't it hurt you to know that Virgil picked a complete stranger over you, that he didn't even consider going to you for help? I mean do you think it was it just because he hates you, or do you think it was also because you are an awful brother? Or was it both?”

“Stop it…” Roman muttered, trying not to cry. He didn't want to think about all the ways he'd failed his little brother. 

“That's what I'm talking about, a little bit of a reaction! Much better! Virgil’s still a lot more fun to mess with, though. I can get him crying on the floor like a little baby by the time I'm done playing with his self-esteem issues. And the best part is he believes all of it…”

“You are so fucking messed up.” Roman spat through gritted teeth. If he had not been chained to the wall he would have punched the smug look right off Deceit’s ugly snake face. 

Deceit just laughed and moved around to look at Logan. “And how are you doing over here?”

“I still think the room could benefit from a book or two.” Logan said, looking right into Deceit’s eyes. 

Deceit nodded thoughtfully. “I shall see what I can do.” 

He walked back over to the door, before he turned back to address all three of them. “Well, if everyone's settled in, I'll leave you guys alone. I'll bring you all some food later, but until then, have a nice time.”

“That's it!” Roman burst, incredulously. “No torture or violent deaths, you're just…leaving us in here?!”

Deceit sighed. “Yes, well… Unfortunately there have been some… complications when it comes to the whole torturing you thing. But if it means that much to you, Roman, I'm sure I can find a way.”

“But what about Virgil?” Patton asks softly.

Deceit smirked at them. “Well, with Virgil it's slightly different.”

“Meaning?” Roman queried. 

“Meaning if I ever walk down here with blood on my shirt, it will probably be his.”

Their eyes widened. 

“There's no need to act so surprised.   
You didn't really think that after all the trouble he's caused me I wouldn't want to punish him?”

“He's not your property, you know! You can't just do whatever you want to him!” Roman snarled. 

“Actually, I can.” Deceit smirked, before spinning around and exiting the room, letting the door slam shut behind him.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Violence and blood

“Are they okay?” Virgil asked as Deceit emerged from the top of the stairs leading down to the basement. 

Deceit rolled his eyes. “They're fine.”

Virgil raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “We could hear them screaming at each other from here.”

“Well I guess you could say that their emotions are quite high at the moment. But of course that is to be expected.”

“But other than that they're fine?”

“Yes, Virgil!” Deceit sighed. “I promised you that no harm would come to them and I keep my word.”

“Your villain name is ‘Deceit’, dude. That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.”

“Well, your villain name is ‘Anxiety’. I wouldn't expect it to.”

Virgil stuck his tongue out at the villain. 

Deceit raised his eyebrows. “Anyway, onto more important things.”

Virgil smiled sarcastically. “Of course! I'm sure we have some other random building or method of public transport to attack for no reason! I can't wait!”

Deceit laughed. “It's adorable that you really think I don't have a reason for doing it.”

Virgil raised his eyebrows. “Oh? So it's not just because you enjoy smashing things?”

“Oh come on, I'm not just being evil because it's fun. Although it is rather fun. No, it's all about the fear it causes. Fear controls people, Virgil. Although of course you know that already.”

“Yeah. Great.”

Deceit smirked at him. “Indeed. You have to admire the effectiveness of it. Now that your three friends are under control, the city needs someone who they can trust.”

“Seriously?! This is about you being a fucking politician?!”

“Well, it just so happens that I can predict everything that Deceit and Anxiety are going to do. It is amazing how popular that can make me. And if I ever need to get rid of them, I can.”

“And here I thought you were doing all of this for the good of the people.” Virgil muttered. 

“No, of course not. This is all about me, and my desire for power. I don't care about anyone else.”

“Well, at least you're honest.”

“I can keep the entire city under control, because I both protect and terrify the people. It's ingenious.”

“You finished your monologue-ing yet?”

Deceit laughed again. “I do enjoy your sarcastic comments every once in a while. But you are right, there will be more time for gloating later. We should get going.” Deceit walked towards the door. 

“Yay.” Virgil stood up and followed Deceit. 

“Oh, and Virgil?” Deceit turned around. “If you screw this up, you're dead.”

Virgil froze. 

“Now, after you.” The villain smiled as though nothing had happened, before opening the front door.

“You are a true gentleman.” Virgil said, before shoving his middle finger in Deceit’s face and storming out of the house. 

… 

“What the fuck was that, Anxiety!?” Deceit screamed as the two of them re-entered the house. 

“I thought you wanted to make a statement! Well, we made a fucking statement!” Virgil yelled back. 

Deceit snarled and shoved him against the wall. “Yes, Virgil, we did. But you also said you would obey me. If I tell you to kill someone, you kill someone. End of story.”

“It was a child! I am not going to kill a child for no reason other than the fact that you want to make a statement! What the actual fuck, yo-”

Deceit punched him in the stomach, causing Virgil to hunch over. “Did I fucking stutter?!”

“D-Deceit, I…” Virgil was cut off as Deceit grabbed him by the hair and threw him to the floor. 

“When - are - you - going - to - learn - to - just - do - as - you're - told!” Deceit yelled, punctuating each word with a kick. 

“S-Stop! D-Deceit, pleas-”

“If I tell you to do something, you bloody well do it!” Deceit screamed, before shoving him across the room into a bookshelf. Virgil really hoped he hadn't broken anything, but knowing his luck that wouldn't be the case. 

“Are we clear?!” Deceit shouted. 

“Y-Yes! Yes, I…”

“I'm not sure the message has quite sunk in yet. Maybe we should just make sure…” Deceit smirked drawing a knife out of his pocket. 

“O-Okay I-I get it! I s-swear I-”

Virgil began to panic as Deceit walked closer, before he grabbed him and shoved him back against the wall. 

“Shut up!” Deceit smirked as Virgil quickly stopped speaking. “Good you're learning.” 

Deceit began to relax his grip, causing Virgil to let out a small sigh of relief as Deceit let him go. The villain turned around as though to walk away, but just as Virgil began to breathe again, Deceit spun around and stabbed him in the shoulder, causing him to scream. 

“Now Virgil, are you going to be good? Or do you need another lesson?”

Virgil fell to the floor and started to cry, clutching his bleeding shoulder. 

“Well?”

“Y-Yes… Y-Yes I… l'll be good, I-I promise. P-Please d-don't hurt me again!”

Deceit sighed and knelt down next to him. “I've tried to be nice, Virgil, but you just keep refusing to do as I say. I really don't want to hurt you, but you don't give me any other choice. If you just behaved none of this would have to happen.”

“I-I…”

“What was that?”

“I-I'm s-sorry…”

Deceit smirked at him. “Are you going to behave now, Anxiety?”

“Yes…” 

… 

Patton jumped as he heard the door open. 

“What are you doing back here?” Roman spat as Deceit walked into the room. 

“Well I think you'll find that this is my house and I can do whatever I want.” Deceit laughed and glanced at Logan, before his eyes landed on Patton. Patton moved further back into the wall. 

“How are we all doing?”

Logan glared at him. “You are evidently not here for a friendly chat, so if you would be so kind as to tell us what you want, that would be most appreciated.”

Deceit sighed. “And here I was trying to be a good host. Very well then.”

Deceit walked further into the room until he was standing right in front of him. 

“Leave him alone!” Roman yelled. 

Deceit rolled his eyes. “I'm not going to hurt him, Roman. It honestly hurts my feelings a little that you always assume the worst of me. I merely need Patton’s assistance on something, a-”

“He isn't helping you with anything!” Roman growled. 

Patton tilted his head in confusion, unsure of why Deceit would need his help with anything. It wasn't as if there was much he could do… 

Unless of course Deceit needed his powers to heal someone, in which case…

“I-I’ll help!” Patton stuttered. 

Deceit smiled at him. “That's very kind of you, Patton. Shall we go?”

“Oh hell no!” Roman snarled. “Get away from him, you little shit!”

“Such foul language, Roman! And from a Prince? I expected better from you!” Deceit laughed, before he unlocked Patton’s chains and grabbed him by the arm. 

“I-I’ll be fine, guys.” Patton said in a high pitched voice as Deceit dragged him across the room. 

“You hurt him and you're dead!” Patton heard Roman scream as the two of them climbed up the stairs. 

“S-So what do you want?” Patton muttered. 

“Well…” Deceit began, as he opened another door and gestured for Patton to go through it. “As I am sure you have already deduced, given your lack of hesitation in agreeing to assist me, I require your skills in healing. I wouldn't usually need your assistance on this, as I can heal minor injuries with my own powers, but unfortunately I got rather carried away…”

Deceit opened yet another door, and Patton froze at the sight. The room was a mess, with everything in the room either broken or on its side, and in the centre Virgil was lying in a pool of blood. 

“What the fuck have you done to him!” Patton yelled, seriously considering punching Deceit in the face. 

“P-Patton…?” Patton flinched as he heard Virgil mutter his name, before he ran over. 

“I'm here, Virgil. You're going to okay, I promise.”

He quickly placed his hands on Virgil’s head and began to heal him. 

“I'm sorry.” Virgil whispered. 

“It's okay, Virge, it's not your fault.”

“Y-Yes, it is!” Virgil sobbed. 

Patton wrapped Virgil in a hug, not caring about the blood now on his clothes. “I don't know what Deceit has told you, Virge, but none of this is your fault, okay?”

Virgil pulled away from him and refused to meet his eyes. “I-I'm sorry…”

Patton tried not to cry and continued to heal his friend. He began to shake with fury as he noticed a stab wound on Virgil’s shoulder. 

“Are you two done yet?”

Patton took a deep breath, trying to resist clawing the villain’s eyes out. “Yes. He's fine now.” 

“Well, now that-”

Patton stormed over and punched Deceit in the face. 

“What the fuck!?” Deceit yelled. 

“How dare you do that to him!” Patton shouted, raising his fist again. 

“I-” Deceit began. 

Patton screamed and lunged at the villain, but Deceit was ready this time and shoved him into the wall. 

“Leave him alone, you dick!” Virgil yelled weakly, diverting Deceit’s attention away from Patton. 

Patton hurriedly put up a shield and ran towards Virgil. He wanted to believe that this would be enough to protect the both of them, but he had just used his healing and had a general lack of energy due to whatever drug Logan deduced they had been given. Patton knew it wouldn't last very long. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try. 

“Patton, stop! I-I'll be fine…” Virgil muttered, as he began to get up from the floor. 

“You should listen to Virgil, Patton. Who knows what will happen to him if you keep…misbehaving.” Deceit said, while rubbing the side of his face that had just been punched. Patton felt an uncharacteristic rush of satisfaction as he saw the beginnings of a bruise forming on the villain’s face, before he hastily dropped his shield. He didn't want to give Deceit any more cause to hurt his friend, and it wasn't as though he would have been able to do much with a shield anyway. But if he got his hands on something else…

“I'll be back in a moment.” Deceit said, before shoving past Patton and dragging  
Virgil out of the room. 

Patton waited until he heard Deceit’s footsteps dying away, before he looked around hurriedly in the hopes of finding a key to help his friends escape. He frantically opened the draws in the upturned furniture, cringing whenever he saw a bit of blood. 

Hearing Deceit’s footsteps once again, he froze, before running through the third door in the room. Finding himself in a kitchen, he hurriedly began to search for a knife, or something else sharp. If he could just find something to threaten Deceit with, then maybe… 

He grabbed a knife from a draw of cutlery, before shoving it in his back pocket once he noticed a knife rack. 

“Looking for something, are we?”

Patton grabbed a knife and spun around to face Deceit. “S-Stay right there! And d-don't you try using anyone's powers, or I-I'll throw this right at your face!”

Deceit laughed. “Really? You and I both know that you wouldn't dare.” Deceit started walking closer. 

“S-Stay where you are!” Patton tried again. 

“Are you really going to kill me, Patton? Go on, I dare you.” Deceit walked towards him, until the tip of the knife in Patton’s hand was touching the villain’s chest. 

“Well go on, then.”

Patton squeezed his eyes shut, but he just couldn't bring himself to kill the villain in front of him. He knew that Deceit had hurt many people, including Patton’s friends, but killing a human being wasn't something Patton could do. 

He dropped the knife. 

Deceit laughed again. “Well, now that you've got your little temper tantrum out of the way, let's return you to your friends. I'm sure they're going crazy imagining all of the things I could be doing to you.”

Patton looked down at the floor. He had just had the chance to save himself and his friends, but he'd screwed it up because he wasn't strong enough to do what had to be done. He felt so useless. If it had been Logan or Roman, they would have done whatever it took to save everyone, but even Deceit knew that Patton was too weak to… 

“I don't have all day, you know.” Deceit grabbed his arm and began to drag him back to the basement. 

Just as they began to descend the stairs, Patton began to smile. 

“What?” Deceit snapped at him. 

“Nothing.” Patton answered quickly, as he reached back and felt the small knife from the kitchen resting in his back pocket. Maybe he wasn't so useless after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and for everyone who has left kudos or a comment! You all make my day!


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm so sorry that it's taken me so long to post this chapter, but I was on a school trip to China so I didn't have access to anything on the Internet. Including YouTube, so I missed the new Sanders Sides when it came out. But I've seen it now, and it was so good! Anyway, on with the chapter :)

Deceit opened the door to the basement and shoved Patton inside, before he quickly restrained the hero again and left the room. 

“Patton?! What happened?! What did he do?! Why are you covered in blood?!” Patton felt sick as Roman’s questions reminded him of exactly what Deceit had done to Virgil. 

“Oh, um… It's not mine.” Patton answered quickly upon seeing Roman’s state of panic. 

“Then I believe I am correct in assuming that your assistance was required due to your skills in healing?” Logan asked. 

“Yeah…”

“So Deceit attacked someone?!” Roman spluttered. 

“S-Something like that…”

Roman growled. “That slimy piece of shit! Are they okay?”

“Um… Y-Yeah. Yeah, he's fine…”

“Patton?” Logan asked softly. “I couldn't help but notice that you seem particularly distressed by this. Did he… was Virgil the one that was hurt?”

Patton let out of sob at the thought of just how much Virgil had been through. He knew that this was probably just one of many times Deceit had hurt his friend since he had captured all of them, and Patton just didn't know about it because Deceit had managed to heal Virgil himself. And that wasn't even considering what Deceit had done to him before Patton and Virgil had become friends. 

Roman’s eyes widened. “W-What… What did he do?! What happened?! Is Virgil okay?!”

“He's fine…” Patton muttered. 

“B-But… Y-You're covered in blood, Patton! What the hell did Deceit do!?”

“He stabbed him. In the shoulder.”

Roman looked livid. “I am going to fucking destroy that son of a bitch!” Roman paused, before his voice dropped in volume and fear clouded his face. “S-So you saw him? You saw Virgil, right? H-How is he?”

“H-He…”

“This is all my fault! If I had actually done my job and stopped Deceit capturing us in the first place Virgil would be safe! How could I have let this happen!?”

“It's not your fault, Roman.” Logan reassured. 

“Yes it is! It's my job to protect him! And who knows what else that monster has done to him! He could have been torturing him for years an-”

Patton started to cry, causing Roman to stop his shouting. 

“I-I'm sorry, Pat. I…”

“It's fine…” Patton sniffed. “I just… D-Don't really want to think about it.”

“Patton is right.” Logan began. “The best way for us to help Virgil is by figuring out how to get out of here. We can't help him while we're stuck in here.”

“Well, actually…” Patton said shyly, “I may be able to help with that.” Struggling to move his chained hands down to his pocket, he slowly reached behind him and drew the butter knife out of his pocket. 

Logan grinned as he saw it. “Patton, I could kiss you right now!” He shouted, before blushing slightly.

“Gay!” Roman yelled, giggling. 

“Anyway, if you would be so kind as to yeet that over to me, that would be most helpful.”

“Yeet?!” Roman spluttered. 

“Virgil gave me some new vocabulary cards. Is that not the correct usage?”

“N-No, its perfect.” Roman said, giggling. 

Patton carefully slid the knife across the floor. Once Logan had the knife, he carefully began to unlock the cuffs off his hands. After a few failed attempts, Patton began to get nervous that it wasn't going to work. Roman, who evidently felt the same way, began to stress-hum the mission impossible theme tune. 

“Roman if you hum one more note I will throw this knife into your chest.” Logan said absentmindedly. 

Roman stopped humming. 

After a few more minutes of stressful silence, Logan smiled in triumph as he managed to unlock his cuffs. 

“Yes!” Roman yelled. “Come on, nerd! You've got this.”

“Shh!” Patton muttered, wary of the fact that Deceit could very well be listening on on them. 

“Sorry!” Roman whispered dramatically.

After Logan managed to detach himself from the wall, he quickly ran over to Roman and began to work on freeing him as well. 

“Hurry up!” Roman whined. “This is really uncomfortable!” 

Logan sighed, whacked Roman on the head with the knife and then continued to open the locks on his friend's chains. Patton then sighed in relief as his friend made his way over to him. He would hopefully he would feel slightly less apprehensive about their escape once he was free. 

Once they were all out of their chains, Logan made his way over to the door. 

“Once I get this door open, we need to be extremely quiet, because we don't know how close Deceit is and we don't want him to hear us.” Logan whispered. “And I'm very much talking to you, Roman.”

“Rude!”

Patton’s heart began to beat faster as the door to their cell slowly crept open. This was it! They were free! Well, they weren't yet, but they were closer to it than they had been in what felt like an incredibly long time. 

“Before we do anything else we of course need to find Virgil.” Logan whispered as the three of them climbed up the stairs leading up from the basement. Once they had slowly opened the next door and looked around, Logan spoke again. 

“Roman, you go up those stairs over there. Patton, we'll search down here.”

“What about Deceit?” Patton whispered cautiously. 

“Once we find Virgil, we can all take him down together.”

Roman’s eyes widened. “With Virgil fighting with us instead of against us, it will be four against one… We could actually do it! We could defeat Deceit once and for all!”

Patton smiled at the realisation. Their plan had of course always been to defeat Deceit, but he had never felt so close to the goal as right now. They could actually do it!

“We have to find Virgil first.” Logan reminded them, his eyes full of fierce determination. “But then…”

“We can do it! We will do it! With all of us together Deceit doesn't stand a chance!”  
Roman grinned at the two of them, and they both smiled back. They were so close! But first they had to find Virgil. 

… 

Roman ran up the stairs, wanting to find his brother as soon as he could. As much as the three heroes would all have liked to just get out of the awful place they were now running around, there was no way they were leaving Virgil here after everything Deceit had done to him. 

He turned a corner and swore softly when he saw an extremely long corridor with about ten doors leading off from it. Deceit must be extremely rich, because his house was huge. Which wasn't great at the moment, as Roman didn't feel particularly up to playing ‘find the emo in the haystack’. 

As he crept along one of the corridors, his mind returned to their earlier conversation. They were so close! He could almost taste victory! But it wasn't just about defeating a villain and being a hero. Their city was so close to being safe, safe from Deceit (and Anxiety, but then again had they ever really been at risk from him when he had been controlled by Deceit the whole time?). And more importantly Roman’s friends and his brother were finally going to be safe. He looked down the corridor and sighed. All he had to do was find his brother, but where the hell was he? 

Roman jumped as he thought he heard a slight shuffling behind him. He hastily grabbed the handle of the first door to his left and threw it open. He then made direct eye contact with Deceit, who was at that moment sitting right behind the door Roman had just entered at a desk, writing what were probably evil masterplans. There went their plan to be discreet and not be found. 

“Oh, hey!” Roman said cheerfully. 

“You have got to be kidding me.” Deceit sighed and began to get up. 

“Well, I'll be going now.” Roman said hurriedly, before he hastily shut the door and ran back down the corridor and along another one. He hadn't felt particularly confident about any of those previous rooms anyway. 

He decided not to open any more doors, not wanting to find another slimy surprise behind them, but started to call out Virgil’s name softly, in the hopes that his brother was somewhere nearby. 

“Virgil…”

After a while he decided that as it was possible that Patton and Logan had found him already, it might be better to find them again and regroup. Besides, if worst came to worst the three of them would surely be able to fight Deceit together, now that they didn't have to fight against Virgil as well. He turned back around and made his way back to the stairs. He really didn't want to have another run in with Deceit while on his own, after all. 

… 

“Virgil!”

Virgil started as he heard his name being called from further down the corridor his room lead off from. What the hell did Deceit want now?

He ripped open his door angrily. “Yes? How can I help?”

Deceit glared back at him. “Anything you'd like to own up to, Virgil?”

“No… Not as far as I know… Unless something else that I have no control over has pissed you off and you've decided to blame it on me. Is it possible that my existence is the problem this morning?”

Deceit laughed coldly. “I was talking more about why your three friends are currently running around my house like hamsters that have just been let out of their cage.”

Virgil froze. “They what? How did they get out?”

“That was actually what I was asking you, I believe.”

“I've been in here since last night, so I can't have had anything to do with it. And speaking of last night, thanks for the stab, by the way, made it such a pleasant evening.”

“Well I'll be happy to do it again if you don't start being useful.”

Virgil shuddered despite himself. “O-Okay… So…”

“I shall go and find Logan and Patton, and you shall go and deal with your brother.”

Virgil felt his heart sink. “But then he'll… he'll know…”

“Know that you are still working for me, that you betrayed him and his friends and that you are and always will be a villain and nothing more than that? Well I guess that's just your problem.” Deceit smirked. 

“But you… You said they wouldn't have to know!”

“Yes, but that was before these… complications.”

“I had nothing to do with any of this!” Virgil yelled desperately. 

“I see no proof of that! Now find him and bring him back or I swear to god Virgil I will make what I did to you last night feel like a friendly nudge!”

“I…”

Deceit punched him in the face, causing him to fall backwards. 

“Don't make me ask you again, Virge.” Deceit warned, his voice cold and full of danger. 

“O-Okay… I-I'm going…” Virgil scrambled up and ducked past Deceit, before running down the hallway. 

It wasn't as though he wanted to do this, but on the bright side, if his former friends did find out how shitty he really was they wouldn't have to waste anymore time trying to care about him. 

… 

“Not going anywhere, I hope.”

“Shit!” Logan swore, as he turned around and saw Deceit standing behind them. 

Patton grabbed his arm. Logan moved so that he was standing slightly in front of his friend. 

“So, tell me, how did you get out? Was it Virgil, because if it was I swear to God I'll kill him.”

Logan glared at him. “You leave Virgil the hell alone.”

“I'll do whatever I want to him.” Deceit smirked. 

Logan glared at him. 

“Y-Your face looks n-nice.” Patton muttered, glaring at Deceit defiantly as he squeezed Logan’s arm tighter. 

Logan’s eyes widened in shock as he saw the bruise on Deceit’s face, before he turned back to his friend and raised his eyebrows. 

“What? I wasn't just going to let him hurt my dark, strange son and get away with it.” Patton said innocently. 

Logan grinned, and stared at Patton proudly. 

“Oh, a-and it wasn't Virgil who let us out, I-I stole a knife f-from the kitchen and hid it w-when you took me back to the basement! And then Logan used it to pick the locks!” Patton added, raising his voice and looking Deceit right in the eyes. 

Deceit looked shocked as Patton drew the butter knife out from his pocket. Logan knew that he would savour that look of surprise on Deceit’s face for a very long time. 

“Well, it seems as though I have underestimated you, Patton. I can see that you have more use then I have previously given you credit for. But no matter, it won't be hard to defeat either of you.”

“And what makes you so sure?” Logan asked, curious as to why he thought had the upper hand. 

“You're weak, Logan. You are tired, hungry, and still recovering from the little surprise that I had slipped into your food a few days ago. All of which is extremely intentional, I can assure you. So what exactly can you do?”

“I have defeated you many times in the past.” Logan reminded the villain, although he was well aware that any fight between him and the villain was going to be anything but equal. “There is no garantee that you will prevail over the two of us.” 

“Yes, but that's where you're wrong. Because there's one crucial thing you haven't realised.”

“Which is?” Logan asked with dawning apprehension. 

Deceit glanced behind Logan and smirked smugly. “I've been stalling.”

… 

Just as Roman was about to descend the stairs, he heard a noise behind him. 

“Hey, Roman.” He froze, before relaxing once he realised who the voice belonged to. 

“Virgil!” Roman grinned. “We've been looking everywhere for you!” Roman felt himself begin to relax, now that he was no longer wandering around a supervillain’s house alone, while being chased by said supervillain.

Virgil smiled sadly, still half covered in shadows. “That's… That was nice of you…”

Roman frowned, noticing the bruise forming on Virgil’s face. “You're hurt!” He clenched his fists, angry that he hadn't been there to protect his brother from whatever Deceit has done. But never again. 

Virgil sighed. “It's fine, Roman. There are more important things to be focusing on right now.”

“You're right! We need to get out of here!”

Virgil squeezed his eyes shut. “I'm sorry, Roman, but I'm afraid I can't allow that.”

Roman’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I don't understand?”

“I'm sorry, Roman.” His brother repeated. Roman froze in horror, as the shadows around Virgil began to grow darker. “But I can't let you leave.”

“Virgil…!” Roman yelled as his brother’s shadows reached out towards him and threw him down the stairs. 

Everything went black. 

… 

“Shit!” Virgil swore as he raced down the stairs towards his unconscious brother. 

“Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit…” Virgil muttered. “Shit, I'm sorry!”

Reaching his brother and finding him relatively unharmed, Virgil began to breathe again. 

“Thank the Lord for that superstrength of yours.” He whispered. “Shit! Why… I'm so sorry I had to do this Roman, I really am. But you have to understand this is for your own good.” 

Virgil laughed bitterly. “Oh God, I sound just like Deceit. ‘I'm just trying to help you, Virgil’, ‘You'll thank me for this one day, Virgil’, ‘This is for own good, Virgil’... Fuck, I'm so sorry. Although I guess that doesn't really make much of a difference to you, does it?”

Virgil flinched as he heard Patton’s raised voice coming from a room to his left. “Well I guess that's my cue.”

He smiled sadly. “I wish things could have been different, Roman, but it was ridiculous to think I could ever be anything other than someone who ruins everything.”

Virgil chained Roman to the bottom of the stairs, before he began to head towards the source of Patton’s voice. 

As he slowly slid open the door, he froze at the sight of Patton and Logan standing in front of Deceit, evidently ready to defend themselves. Too bad there wasn't going to be much of a fight. 

He met Deceit’s eyes and nodded, causing the villain to smile smugly. 

“I've been stalling.” Deceit smirked. 

“Why? What could you be-”

“Hey guys.” Virgil muttered, causing the two heroes to turn around and face him. 

“Virgil?” Logan asked. Virgil smiled sadly at him. 

“O-Oh. Oh, I see.” Logan grabbed Patton and backed up against the wall. So that he could focus on both of the two threats, Virgil reminded himself. 

“Virgil? What's going on?” Patton asked in confusion. 

Virgil smiled at Patton. “It's okay, Pat. Everything's going to be fine.”

“Virgil…” Logan pleaded. “Virgil, please tell me you're not…”

Virgil looked away. 

“I… I can't believe this… How could I have been do stupid!?” Logan glared at him, although Virgil could see the tears in the heroes eyes as he did so, and it broke his heart. 

“Logan…” He began, not quite knowing what he wanted to say. 

“Isn't this fun?” Deceit grinned. “I love a good plot twist, after all. But I don't think little old Patton quite gets it, does he?”

“G-Gets what?”

“Virgil, if you would.”

Virgil lashed out with his shadows, pinning Logan to the wall. Deceit grabbed Patton from behind and placed a knife to his throat. 

“Shit!” Virgil swore, as Logan flung a chair at his head. He ducked, before surrounding Logan in shadows, making it impossible for him to see anything. 

“I liked that chair.” Deceit muttered, eyeing the broken chair now lying on the floor. 

Virgil rolled his eyes, before flinching as he met Patton’s eyes. 

“I-I don't understand, Virgil! Why would you-”

Deceit laughed. “God, you're such an idiot, Patton. Let me see if I can spell this out for you. Virgil never cared about you.”

“But I-” Virgil began, before he quickly shut up as Deceit glared at him. 

“I let him set Logan free in order to gain your trust, and then I had him capture you for me. If I'd have known you'd all be so stupid and naive, I would have done it much sooner. I guess you're not as smart as you like to believe, Logan.”

Logan and Patton both remained silent. 

“Now, I'm afraid we'll have to put you back downstairs now. We've got a city to take over after all, don't we Virgil?”

“Yeah.” Virgil replied, devoid of any emotion. “Yeah, we do.”


	30. Chapter 30

When Roman woke up and realised he was back in the now unfortunately familiar basement, he felt rather disorientated. Then he remembered. 

Roman waited for the rush of fury and betrayal, but instead he just felt… empty. It wasn't as though he didn't care about what had happened, he just didn't feel anything about it. He didn't really feel anything at all. 

Roman glanced around and noticed that Patton and Logan were both still with him. He should have felt disapointed, or as though all his hopes and dreams had been crushed to dust. But he didn't. 

Looking at the two of them and noticing slight movements, he realised they were most likely awake. 

“Logan?” He asked quietly. 

“Oh. You're awake.” 

“Yeah.” Roman replied numbly. 

Logan hesitated. “Do you know? About V-”

“Yeah, I know.” Roman cut in quickly. He had a feeling he'd start to feel again if they kept talking about… him. Roman didn't really think he wanted to feel right now. 

“Okay.”

“You were right.” Roman laughed weakly. 

“Yes. Yes, I was.” Logan whispered, before turning away. 

Roman, glanced over to Patton. He was crying softly, his shoulders shaking. From Logan’s lack of reaction, Roman had a feeling Patton had been crying for a while. He didn't look like he was in a talking mood. 

Roman turned away from his friends and glanced at the door. He wondered absentmindedly what happened next. Maybe Deceit would come to gloat, and if that would be enough to make him angry. Although maybe the villain had already done his gloating to Patton and Logan. Or maybe V... the other villain would come to gloat instead, about how well he had fooled them all. Or maybe Roman was just going to have to sit here in silence for the rest of his life. 

… 

“You enjoyed that, didn't you?!” Virgil snarled at Deceit once the two of them had dragged the heroes back to Deceit’s basement. 

“Just a little bit.” Deceit smirked. 

“You're a fucking dick. You know that, right?”

Deceit began to laugh. “Oh come on, Virge! You have to admit that was a little funny.”

Virgil glared at him. 

“Not even a tiny bit? Not a teeny, weeny bit?”

“What part of that was funny?!” Virgil hissed. 

“Do you have eyes?! The look of surprise and betrayal on their faces is something I'm going to savour for a long time. I just wish I was there to see Roman’s reaction when his precious baby brother threw him down the stairs.”

“They're my friends!” Virgil yelled. 

“You mean they were your friends.” Deceit laughed. 

“Asshole.” Virgil muttered. 

“Oh I'm sorry, Virgil. Did I upset you?”

“They ar- They were my friends! And maybe, just maybe, I wanted to keep that!”

“Really, Virgil? You aren't still going on about this, are you? They've hated you for years anyway. I mean, did you really think a few weeks with them was going to make them change their minds?”

“They… They did change their minds.”

“Really?” Deceit smirked. “Because they seemed pretty quick to accept your return to the dark side.”

“Stop it! Stop doing that thing you do!”

“What thing?” Deceit asked innocently, or at least as innocently as a villain and mass murderer can. 

“The ‘making me doubt everything I think I know’ thing! Yes, they were quick to accept it, but that was only because the evidence was right in front of them. They did change their minds about me, and I can get them to do it again! They'll understand… They have to…”

Deceit laughed at him. 

“I'm doing this for them!” Virgil yelled. 

“You think they'll care, Virgil? You think they'll even believe you?”

“Y-Yes…Yes, they…they will…”

“Well, you can see for yourself if you want. Why don't you go and give your so called friends their dinner? It will give you a great chance to tell them your side of the story, and I'm sure they will believe you.”

Virgil tensed. “But…”

“No, go on, Virgil. I want to give you a chance to tell your friends the truth. And I want to give you a chance to see just how much they won't care! It's black and white for them, Virgil. You are either a hero, or a villain. They were never truly going to accept you, Virgil, because you were a villain and they will never be able to see past that! So go, go see your friends and find out just how much your so called friendship means to them.”

…

Virgil hesitantly made his way down to the basement, adamently wishing that he didn't have to do this. But of course Deceit had decided that he needed some kind of ‘lesson’, and that this was the best way to do it. 

He froze outside the door, trying to hear if his fri-... if the three heroes were saying anything. He didn't really know what he wanted to hear. He certainly didn't want to hear them going on about how much they hated him, but then again there wasn't much else to say when it came to all the horrible things he had done. Instead he just heard silence. 

Virgil slowly opened the door, winching at the sound it made, and then found himself wishing he could fall through the floor as all three occupants of the room turned around to stare at him. Virgil tensed as he felt their eyes focus on him, before he flinched as they all turned away without saying a word. 

“I, er… I brought food…!” He laughed awkwardly before hastily placing it down in front of them. 

Virgil felt as though he was drowning, the deafening silence of the room crushing him from all sides. 

“So…” He began, desperately trying to fill the silence. “It's, um… a nice space, isn't it?” Virgil wanted to hit himself in the face. Of course it wasn't a nice space, it was a cell, Virgil! Stupid! 

“I-I mean… Like… As far as like prison-type places go… I-I mean, I've been put in here myself a few times when Deceit’s been especially mad at me, and it definitely grows on you… the room, I mean, not being put in here by Deceit… that doesn't really get better… but I'm sure you know that already…”

Virgil trailed off. None of them would even look at him. He had known they would hate him, and of course had perfectly good reason to now, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. If they would just be willing to listen to his side of story, he was sure they would be able to understand… right? 

“Listen, I… Can I just… explain…? I just…You guys don't understand… you don't know the full story...I-”

“I think we know more then enough, Anxiety.” Logan finally replied. Virgil found himself wishing he hadn't. 

“Logan, I-”

“That's Logic to you.” Logan spat. 

“R-Right… Yeah… Sorry…” Virgil muttered. “It's just…”

“Just what?!” Logan growled. “What could you possibly have to say for yourself right now?! We don't want to hear your excuses, Vir- Anxiety. You lied to us and pretended to be our friend in order to gain our trust and eventually bring us here. Its a common enough tactic, and we certainly don't need to hear any-”

“But that's not what happened!” Virgil yelled desperately. “It was different!”

“So you didn't set me free so that I would lead you back to Patton and Roman so you could capture all three of us?” Logan asked. 

“Well, no, but-”

“And you didn't drug us, capture us and lock us away?”

“Well, no, but-”

“And you didn't recapture us when we tried to escape?”

“N-No, b-”

“Then tell me Virgi- Anxiety, what exactly was so different?!”Logan yelled. 

Virgil blinked away tears. “Logan… Logic, please, I....”

“I don't believe we have anything more to say to each other.”

“Patton, please-” Virgil begged.

“Don't you dare! How dare you even look at him after everything you've done to him!” Logan snarled. 

“I didn't… I didn't mean to… I didn't want any of this…” Virgil muttered, tears rolling down his cheeks. “I-I'm s-sorry. Logan, I-I'm sorry I-I lied to you. And you too, Patton. I never wanted to hurt you. A-And Roman-”

“Just leave, Anxiety.” Roman whispered softly. Virgil’s heart broke. 

“O-Okay…” He had been an idiot to think that they would listen to him. They were right after all, and they shouldn't have to hear his excuses. He turned to leave. 

“Virgil?” Virgil froze as he heard Patton whisper his name. 

“Y-Yes?”

“A-Are y-you…?” Patton sniffed. “H-How are you feeling?”

Virgil tilted his head in confusion, before realising that Patton had been present at the aftermath of the last time Virgil had pissed Deceit off. Patton had been so worried about him then, when he hadn't known that Virgil was a liar and a traitor. It felt like years ago. 

“I-I'm fine, thanks to you…” Virgil muttered awkwardly. He wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to say. 

“What did you do?” Patton asked softly, still refusing to look at him. “I-I m-mean…i-if you're on the same side, why would he…?”

“I, er… I mean I basically just pissed him off… I do that a lot… and then he gets mad and he… It's fine, really…”

Patton lifted his head up and finally looked at him, the heroes eyes widened in shock. “So he just… V-Virgil, that's…”

Virgil tilted his head in confusion. Why was Patton asking this? It wasn't like the hero gave a shit about Virgil after everything he had fucked up, so why would he…? 

“I-It's not a big deal!”

“B-But… H-He didn't even care! W-When Roman stabbed you… you could have died! He didn't… He didn't even care! Why would… W-Why would you be on his side, after everything he's done to you? I don't understand?” Patton looked at him desperately. “Why would… I… I thought we were friends, Virgil! How could you…How could-”

“How could you choose him over us?” Roman finally spoke, causing Virgil to flinch. He had almost forgotten that Logan and Roman were still in the room. 

“I'm s-sorry… I r-really am… I  
I didn't have a choice, I swear! I would never have betrayed you guys like that, but he found us and there was nothing I could do! I knew that if I killed him one of his friends would just take his place, and I just thought that if I made a deal with him it would be the best way to protect you! I never wanted it to end like this I swear I'm so sorry I…” Virgil cut himself off with a sob. It wasn't like any of this would make any difference anyway. 

Patton’s eyes widened. “S-So… So you were on our side!”

Logan sighed. “Patton, he just said-”

“I was!” Virgil yelled desperately. “I mean, not at the beginning… B-But y-you guys made me realise how wrong I was, h-how horrible Deceit was and h-how I could be better! Oh God, that sounds so stupid! I just, I changed, I swear! B-But I-I know t-that doesn't j-justify any of my actions. I don't ever expect you guys to forgive me or anything, or like, not hate me… I mean I hate myself too, so we have that in common, I guess… I guess I just want you guys to understand that at one point I was your friend, even if I'm not anymore…” 

“You can't really expect us to believe that.” Logan muttered. 

“Of course I don't.” Virgil answered honestly. He was tired of lying. “I just… wanted you to know. You deserve to know… I should, er, probably go now… You know, before Deceit gets annoyed at me… again…I-I mean as much as I love seeing you Patton I-I'd rather not need your healing abilities again too soon...”

“Y-You… You can't let him do that to you, V- Anxiety… Why don't you fight back?” Roman asked. 

“I-I can't really… I mean, I kind of said I wouldn't…”

“I don't quite follow.” Logan looked up.

“I-I… I mean… H-He said he wouldn't hurt you guys if I… If I didn't f-fight him or anything… B-But he only h-hurts me if I do something wrong…” Virgil trailed off at the horrified looks the three heroes were giving him. “I-It's f-fine, guys, i-it's…”

“No, Virgil, it's not.” Patton whispered. 

“R-Right…” Virgil laughed shakily, before quickly he quickly turned around and slammed the door, not wanting to look into Patton’s sad eyes for a second longer. 

“Well that was a trainwreck.” He whispered to himself, letting out a pained laugh as he slowly made his way back up the stairs.


	31. Chapter 31

“I told you they'd hate you.” Deceit appeared behind him, smirking. 

Virgil jumped. “You were watching us.” He muttered, not really that surprised. 

Deceit laughed. “I'm not an amateur, Virgil! It's not like I'm just going to let you go and speak to your former allies alone, even if they do hate you.”

“They don't.” Virgil kept walking, making sure the door at the top of the stairs closed in Deceit’s face. 

Deceit laughed again. 

“Okay… Maybe they do… B-But Patton doesn't.” Virgil defended.

Deceit’s smile dropped. “Well I'll give you that. Patton seems to have grown rather… fond of you, and is having a bit of a problem letting you go...”

Virgil froze at Deceit’s sudden change in tone. “S-So?”

“It's… annoying.” Deceit spat. “He's always manages to get in the way…”

“How exactly is he in the way?”

“Because, Virgil…” Deceit sighed. “Because he was the one who made you doubt in the first place. And now, you're still attached to them. You still… You still care… And that gets in the way…”

“Y-Yeah? Well that isn't going to change! Even if they don't give a shit about me, I'm not going to stop caring about them! And maybe, instead of blaming the fact that Patton made me doubt you and what we fought for, you should blame my ‘betrayal’ on the fact that I was only on your side and am only on your side because you manipulate me and hurt me so that I do what you say!”

“Well, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working very well. Maybe I should try a bit harder.” Deceit spat through gritted teeth. 

Virgil froze at the threat. “B-But… But I'm doing everything you want!”

“Is that so? Because I seem to be spending an awful lot of my time punishing you for disobeying me or for making stupid mistakes. And as fun as that is, it would be alot easier if I could rely on you to just get a job done! You were a failure at the best of times, but at least before you met… before you met him i didn't have to deal with your sudden burning desire to do the right thing!” Deceit paused. “Would it not be simpler, Virgil? To just forget about them. To stop caring.”

Virgil tried to open his mouth, to yell that he would never do that, and that caring was an advantage. But he couldn't. Because Deceit was right, it would be easier. To just forget about them, to just go back to the way that it had been before. 

“It would be so simple.” Deceit lowered his voice. “Think about it. I could get rid of them, you'd never have to even think about them again. Wouldn't you like that, Virgil? To just go back to how it was before? You and me against the world?”

“It never was ‘you and me’, we were never a team. It was just you pretending to be my friend.” Virgil muttered. 

“I'm trying to help you, Virgil. I'm trying to make this easier for you. If you just stopped fighting me, I-”

“No!”

He wasn't going to listen to Deceit’s lies any longer. He wasn't going to go back to be being ignorant again. Maybe it would be easier. Maybe it would even be better. But he would never do that to his friends. 

“Why do you always have to make it so difficult, Virgil?” Deceit stared at him for a minute, before he turned his back and walked back towards the door. 

“I think it's my turn for a little chat with our guests.”

Virgil froze. “Wh…What are you going to do to them?!”

Deceit laughed. “Relax, Virgil. We're just going to have a little chat. Patton’s been pissing me off quite a lot lately, and I'd like to ensure that that stops happening.”

“If you do so much as lay a finger on any of them I swear to God I'll-”

“You'll what?” Deceit turned around to look at him. 

“I…”

“No,Virgil, I'm curious.” He stalked over to him and shoved him against the wall. “What would you do?”

Virgil didn't know. 

Deceit smirked at his silence. “That’s what I thought.” He threw Virgil to the ground. “You always were a coward.”

He walked over to Virgil, who began to edge away from him, not wanting a repeat of the last time Deceit had thrown him to the floor. 

“What's wrong, Virgil? Are you scared?”

“O-Of you? N-Never.” Virgil spat out, his voice shaking. 

“Oh? Well maybe you should be.”

…

Logan looked up cautiously as he heard the door open. He was unsure whether he actually wanted to see Vi- Anxiety again, because he was still struggling to work out exactly which side the villain (but was he a villain?) was on. However, on noticing that it was Deceit coming through the door, Logan concluded that he would probably prefer it to have been V- Anxiety, given that Deceit’s visits never usually ended well. Not that he had visited a lot, but while Logan was still questioning Virgil’s motiv- Anxiety’s motives, he didn't want Deceit to have hurt him again. 

“Well I can't deny just how much I've been enjoying this! The arguments and the whole betrayal thing have both been incredibly amusing, I feel like I’m watching a soap opera.”

“I am pleased that our pain amuses you so much.” Logan responded dully. “It has always been a life ambition of mine to provide you with high quality entertainment, after all.”

Deceit laughed, before he slowly made his way to the other side of the room. 

“Hello there, Patton.”

Patton’s eyes widened as Deceit stopped in front of him. 

“H-Hi…”

Deceit knelt down so that the two of them were at eye level. “So… You said some rather mean things about me when Virgil came to visit.”

Logan’s eyes widened as he realised Deceit had been spying on Virgil’s previous visit. Who knew how many of their conversations Deceit had been listening to. They would have to more careful in the future, as planning an escape would be difficult when Deceit could be listening to their plans. Not realising this before had been a rather foolish and possibly dangerous overlook on Logan’s part.

“I-I…” Patton shrank back against the wall. 

“You understand, of course, that I have put rather a lot of work into controlling Virgil the way I do. And the whole being nice to Virgil thing you've got going on isn't very helpful. So, if you would stop interfering, that would be most appreciated.”

“W-What?” Patton tilted his head in confusion. 

Deceit rolled his eyes. “It's not that hard to grasp. You're being nice to Virgil and telling him bad things about me, which makes it a lot harder for me to get Virgil to do the things I want. So, stop trying to turn him against me. Well, stop trying to turn him more against me because you seem to have done an annoyingly good job so far.”

Patton glared at the villain. “No.”

Deceit laughed coldly. “No?”

“You… You are hurting my friend! And for some reason he seems to think that that is okay. But it's not, and I'm going to do everything I can to stop him believing that it is!”

Logan and Roman held their breaths as they watched Patton face off against Deceit. The villain had not done anything to any of them before, but Logan had not seen Deceit this angry before, and the possibility that he might hurt Patton was not something Logan wanted to come to pass. 

“Listen, Patton, I like you… Okay that's a lie I've always found you incredibly irritating… But, I don't want to hurt you… Okay I do, but… I want Virgil to go back to who he was before, okay? And you are making that extremely difficult. So if you could go back to hating him like your other two friends do, that would be great.”

“I don't hate him!” Roman snapped. 

“Shut up, Roman.” Deceit dismissed. 

“No! I am not done here! Now leave Patton alone or…” Roman trailed off. 

“Or?” Deceit smirked. 

Roman remained silent. 

Deceit laughed. “Go on. What would you do Roman, if I, oh I don't know, did this?” Deceit grabbed Patton’s wrist and began to twist it, causing him to cry out. 

“Get away from him!” Roman screamed. 

“Leave him alone!” Logan growled. 

“What are you doing to do about it?” Deceit mocked, before he twisted Patton’s arm even further, causing Patton to let out a sob.

Logan narrowed his eyes in fury, before using all his available energy to drag Deceit across the room using his telekinesis and slam him into the opposite wall. Deceit collapsed next to the door. 

“Holy shit!” Roman yelled. 

Deceit groaned, before he pushed himself off the ground and stormed over to where Logan was chained to the wall. 

“You are going to regret that.” The villain whispered, shaking with fury. 

Logan tensed in fear, but held his head high. “I'm not afraid of you.”

Deceit laughed manically. “Well then, I better work on changing that, shouldn't I?” Deceit paused, before he laughed again. “You know, you're actually the second person to say that to me today! Isn't that funny? Although I think you might actually not be afraid of me, whereas Virgil most definitely is.” Deceit smirked at that, before he took a knife out of his pocket. 

“Stop it!” Patton screamed. “Leave him alone! Please, it was my fault, don't hurt him!” 

Deceit smirked. “Oh, don't worry Patton. I am fully aware that it was indeed your fault. However, I also know that it's much easier to hurt you by hurting someone else than by hurting you directly. And I'm also kind of pissed at Logan here because he just threw me across the room.”

“Stop it, please! Please don't hurt him! Please!”

“Shut up, Patton. You sound pathetic.” 

Patton sobbed. 

“It's okay, Patton. I'll be fine.” Logan reassured his friend, although judging by the anger in Deceit’s eyes he would most certainly not be. 

“Now, technically, I'm breaking a few promises by doing this. But, what Virgil doesn't know won't hurt him. It's going to hurt you, though.” Deceit smirked at Logan, before punching him the face. 

“Now that was incredibly satisfying! I've been wanting to do that for a long time!” Deceit grinned at him. 

Logan glared at the villain, but found his gaze drifting to the knife in his hand. While he wanted to remain brave so that he didn't worry his friends, the fact remained that Deceit could seriously hurt him right now and he wasn't particularly thrilled about it. 

Deceit smirked at him, but before the villain could do anything else the door flew open and Anxiety stormed through, shadows swirling around him. 

“Get away from him.” Virgil snarled. 

Deceit growled. “Seriously?! What the fuck are you doing here? I told you to stay upstairs.”

“I'm not an amateur, Deceit!” Virgil mocked. “It's not like I'm just going to let you go and speak to your enemies alone, even if you did promise you wouldn't hurt any of them.”

“Ha ha ha, you're hilarious.” Deceit drawled. “Now fuck off.”

“No.”

Deceit laughed at him. “Where has all this newfound confidence come from?”

“Threaten me, that's fine. Threaten my friends, well that's not happening. I thought I'd made this clear, but maybe you haven't quite got the message, so I'll say this once more. Leave them alone, or I will fucking kill you! Is that understood?!”

Deceit stormed over and grabbed Virgil by the hair. “What have I said about disobeying me, Virgil?”

Virgil snarled, and used his shadows to shove Deceit away. “We had a deal, Deceit. I would obey you, and you wouldn't hurt them. So if you break your side, I'm sure as hell going to break mine!”

“When are you going to realise that I'm the one with the power here?! You do as I say, Virgil! This isn't a partnership, it's a dictatorship!”

“You may be the one with the most power in this situation, but don't think for one second that that means I don't have any!”

Deceit looked livid. “Why don't we continue this conversation upstairs? They'll be more room for me to beat the shit out of you.”

Virgil glared at him. “Well, after you.” He gestured to the door. Deceit stormed out. There was silence. 

“T- Thank you, Virgil.” Patton whispered. 

Virgil’s face softened. “It's okay, Patton. I'm not going to let him do anything to any of you.”

“VIRGIL!”

“Well, that's my cue. See you guys later.” Virgil smiled, did a two-fingered salute and then raced back up the stairs, slamming the door behind him. 

There was a moment of silence. 

“What just happened?” Roman asked. 

“I'm… not quite sure.” Logan replied.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: blood and injuries (not really that graphic though because no thanks)

Virgil ran up the stairs, his heart pounding. What had he been thinking?! He was so dead. 

Deceit snarled at him as he entered the room. “How nice of you to join me. I was beginning to think you were too scared to face me.”

“W-Well, I'm here now!!”

“Are you okay there, Virgil? Or have you stopped feeling brave now that your little friends aren't here for you to impress anymore?”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Virgil spat back. 

“Oh, I don't know, you just always seem to be ready to fight me in front of them but then turn into a weak, pathetic mess whenever we're alone.”

Well, he wasn't wrong. “I told you, I will protect them with everything I have, bu-”

“But you don't care enough about yourself to do the same for you.”

Virgil remained silent. 

Deceit smirked. “Well, that's pathetic. But also rather useful for me. So does that mean you're going to give up now and let me cut you into little pieces because I'm really getting the urge to do that right now…”

“No! This isn't about me, this is about them!”

Deceit sighed, although Virgil could clearly see that he was seething beneath his calm persona. “Why does it always have to be about them? They aren't important, Virgil!”

“They are to me!”

“Oh grow up, Virgil! You sound like a child! Now, are you going to apologise, or am I going to have to use a knife to drag it out of you?!” 

Virgil felt the panic start to settle in, but he forced himself to push through it. “N-No… I'm not going to apologise! A-and you aren't going to hurt me either!”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Shut up! I am going to speak my mind and you are going to listen!” Virgil screamed, furious at the dismissive way Deceit was acting. 

“Again Virgil, it's like you're a baby having a temper tantrum. I just can't take you seriously right now, I mean honestly, you look pathetic.”

Virgil glared at him, causing Deceit to raise his eyebrows. Usually by now Virgil would be on the floor begging for Deceit’s forgiveness, but when his friends’ lives were on the line things were different. He had to act differently. 

Deceit rolled his eyes. “Well, go on then.”

“Okay, fine! Why don't we start with the fact that you made a promise and you sure as hell didn't keep it just now!”

“I don't follow.”

“You promised! You promised you wouldn't hurt them!”

“Are we seriously still on this? I barely touched him! Can we move on from this and get to the bit where I torture you for hours because I'm getting extremely impatient.” The boredom in Deceit’s tone was giving Virgil a rather persistent urge to punch Deceit in the face. 

“Shut up, shut up, shut up! I knew… I knew I couldn't trust you to not hurt them, and now… and now you've proved it!”

“So?” Deceit asked, evidently unimpressed with Virgil’s outburst. 

“So it's over.”

Deceit’s eyes widened in shock. “What?”

“It's over! This little deal or whatever!”

“Virgil, don't be ridiculous! You can't just end this! I have the upperhand here! If you refuse to work with me I can just torture your friends until you change your mind. You can't win.”

Virgil narrowed his eyes. “I can if I kill you.”

Deceit laughed. “We've had this conversation before, Virgil! I have friends who-”

“You have friends?! How?! I had no idea that anyone could actually like you!” Virgil spat, attempting a sarcastic and rebellious attitude in order to avoid his usual actions of just giving in to what Deceit was saying. 

“What did I say about your sarcasm, Virgil?” Deceit growled. 

“That it was your favourite thing about me besides, of course, my dashing good looks?”

“Where the fuck does this cocky attitude come from?! You're a snivelling idiot one minute and a rebellious shit the next!”

Virgil smirked. “Well when you have to pretend to be an evil villain with an ‘I don't give a shit attitude’ for two years, you pick some things up. And before I lose my nerve and freak out, I'm going to take advantage of it by using my ‘rebellious attitude’ to get as far away from you as I possibly can.”

“You actually think this is going to turn out well for you?! Don't be an idiot, Virgil.”

Virgil glared at the villain and lunged out with his shadows knocking Deceit to the floor. 

Deceit sprung up, seething. “You little shit!”

“Don't come any closer!” Virgil yelled.

Deceit sighed, and then before Virgil had time to think the villain reached into his pocket and threw the knife he had hidden there. It flew across the room and embedded itself in Virgil’s thigh, causing him to cry out and fall to the floor. 

Deceit slowly walked over to where he lay on the floor and looked down at him in distaste. “I've tried to be nice, Virgil. I've tried to help you see the error of your ways. But if you are really going to try and leave me, then maybe you're too far gone. Maybe you're not worth the effort anymore.”

Virgil’s eyes widened. “W-What? What do you mean?! What are you going to do to me?!”

“What I mean, Virgil, is that I’ve wasted far too much of my time trying to get an ungrateful, useless piece of shit to do what I say, and I'm not going to spend any more time dealing with your pathetic attempts at defiance.” Deceit seethed. 

“S-So…”

“So, I have no use for you.”

“G-Good! Because I'm going to get the hell out of here, and as far away from you as possible!” Virgil yelled. 

“No you're not.” Deceit transformed into Logan and shoved Virgil to the wall, holding him there with his stolen telekinesis. “You're not going anywhere.”

Deceit strode over to the other side of the room and drew out an all too familiar item. “I decide to take it back with me, as a trophy of sorts.” The villain smirked, as he eyed Roman’s sword smugly. 

“O-Oh… T-That's nice…”

“Yes, it is, isn't it?” Deceit mused. “But now I have another use for it. Rather poetic, don't you think. The actions of this sword brought you together with your friends in the first place, which was the beginning of your journey to the good side, and now the actions of this same sword will end that journey.”

Virgil froze, eyes wide with shock. “Y-You're… You're going to kill me.”

Deceit laughed. “It's nothing personal, Virge. It's just that, well, you're in my way and I hate you.”

“B-But…” 

“But what?” Deceit smirked.

“You'd r-really kill me?”

“Of course, why wouldn't I- Oh, Virgil. Oh, you poor dear. You didn't actually think I cared about you, did you?”

Virgil had of course been under no delusion that Deceit considered him a friend. But he had thought that maybe he had before Virgil had betrayed him. Or at least at the very beginning. And even if he hadn't seen him as an actual friend, Deceit had to care for Virgil a little bit, right? 

“B-But… You'd k-kill me?”

“Virgil, you mean nothing to me. I don't give a shit about you!” Deceit laughed.

“B-But…”

“Aw, what's wrong? Is the little baby upset?”

“I-I…”

“Are you crying, Virgil?” Deceit laughed. 

“N-No!” Virgil snarled, furiously blinking back tears. 

“Jesus Christ! You really are pathetic, aren't you?”

Virgil sobbed, as Deceit crossed the room and placed Roman’s sword against his chest. 

“Please…” 

Deceit laughed, before eyeing Virgil curiously. 

“Hm… It’s just… not quite right…” Deceit murmured, before he released Virgil and let him fall to the floor. “Fight back.”

“W-What?”

“Go on… Oh come on, Virgil! It's not as fun if you just curl into a ball and die! I want to see hope in your eyes before I watch your life leave them!”

Virgil remained silent. 

“Really? Nothing. Well, fine. This is why it will be much more fun when I kill your friends.”

Virgil flinched. 

“Come on! Are you even going to try and fight, Virgil? Or are you that weak that you won't even try to stop me?”

Virgil averted his eyes. 

“Really, Virgil? Nothing? I must say I'm rather disappointed.”

Virgil closed his eyes, curled up into a ball and waited. 

“You aren't even going to try? Now what would your three ‘friends’ think about that, I wonder?”

Virgil tensed. 

Patton, Logan and Roman were still here, and still very much in danger. He knew he couldn't leave them here alone. He knew he had to keep fighting. He just wasn't sure if he wanted to. 

Wiping his eyes, he took a deep breath, and then lunged at Deceit and grabbed Roman’s sword out of the villain’s hands. Deceit’s eyes widened as Virgil held the sword to Deceit’s chest.

“I should probably have seen that coming.” Deceit muttered, before he began to raise his hand, and his features began to change. 

Realising he had about two seconds before Deceit threw him across the room with Logan’s telekinesis, Virgil went to stab Deceit. 

He leaned forward to stab the man who had taken him in when he had nowhere else to go and the man who had manipulated him for his own gain. He looked at the man who had been the only one there for him and the man who had hurt him for years. He looked at the man who had been his closest friend and the man who had made him into a murderer.

He looked at him.

He leaned forward to kill him. 

He looked at him once more. 

And he hesitated.

Virgil flew through the air and crashed into the wall. Deceit grabbed the sword off the ground and pointed it at him. Virgil’s eyes were wide with panic, as he realised what was about to happen. And as he realised what his moment of hesitation had cost him. 

“Deceit, please…”

“I must say your little pause there was a bit of a surprise.” Deceit laughed. “Not that I'm complaining, of course. Maybe I did a better job at manipulating you then I thought! I mean for you to still care about me after everything I've done to you, I must have done a good job.” Deceit paused for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. “But no matter, I'm done with you now.”

Virgil screamed as he felt Deceit drive Roman’s sword through his stomach. 

Deceit smirked at him. “Well, now that I've dealt with you, I'm going to finish what I started downstairs with your friends. Hopefully now I can get things done without any interruptions.” Deceit wiped the blood on the sword off on Virgil’s jeans, placed the sword down on a table, and then began to head for the door. 

Through the haze of pain, Virgil panicked as he realised what Deceit was about to do. 

“N-No… Please… Don't…” He whispered. 

Deceit didn't even stop. Virgil desperately conjured up his shadows, and before he could think about his actions he used his shadows to grab Roman’s sword and propel it into Deceit’s chest. 

Deceit cried out and fell to the floor. 

Virgil sobbed and began to run to Deceit, but he then froze upon hearing a noise from upstairs. Remembering that Deceit’s two villain friends were also in the house and were still a threat, Virgil instead grabbed the keys to his friend's chains and began to head towards the door. 

His eyes then fell on a pile of explosives sitting next to a bookshelf. Deceit’s next evil scheme had involved blowing up some important building, but Virgil had something else in mind. Maybe Deceit and his friends wouldn't be such a problem after all. He just had to get his friends out of the house first.


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Blood and injuries, an explosion

“He's going to be okay, right?” Patton asked once Virgil had followed Deceit out of the room. He wanted to believe that Virgil would be, but Deceit had just seemed so angry… 

“I… I'm sure he'll be fine.” Logan reassured him. The three of them jumped as they heard yelling from the floor above them. 

“He sounds really angry.” Patton muttered, drawing his knees towards his body. “He's going to hurt him, isn't he?”

“We don't know that for sure…” Logan replied, although his face told a different story.

“This is all my fault!” Patton sobbed. “If I hadn't made him angry Virgil wouldn't have had to get involved! And now…” He cut himself off, not wanting to think about it. 

“You are most certainly not the one at fault here. If I hadn't-”

“Logan, stop! We can't keep blaming ourselves for Deceit’s actions!” Roman cut in. 

“I suppose you're right, Roman, it's just that-”

The three of them froze as they heard a crash from upstairs. 

“W-What was that?” Patton whispered. 

“I don't-” They all jumped as they heard Virgil cry out.

“Virgil!” Patton yelled. “Leave him alone!”

“Patton, that's not going to help…” Logan began quietly. 

“I don't care! I can't just sit here and… I  
I don't want to… We didn't have to hear it last time… I-I… I don't want to listen…”

Patton curled up and tried not the listen to Deceit’s shouting. 

“What do you think is happening up there?” Roman asked after a while, trying to break the silence. 

Patton looked up at Logan, but he just shook his head. 

“Trying to figure out what Deceit is doing isn't going to help.”

“I know, but…” Roman trailed off. “I want to do something! I…” Roman yanked harshly at the chains holding him against the wall. 

Patton looked down again. They didn't know what was going on, but at least the shouting had stopped. 

Patton’s heart stopped as he heard Virgil scream from the floor above. 

“Virgil!” Roman screamed. “Deceit, you son of a bitch!”

“Please be okay.” Patton whispered. “Please…”

He glanced over at Logan, but he was refusing to look either of them in the eyes. Patton looked down at the ground, trying to ignore the ghost of Virgil’s blood-curdling scream ringing in his ears. 

… 

Once Virgil had set up enough explosions to hopefully blow up the house and any villains in it, he raced down the stairs to the basement. Once he reached the door he stood for a moment to catch his breath, and then cautiously opened it. 

“H-Hey guys! I-I'm back.” Virgil limped into the room, clutching his still bleeding stomach. 

“Virgil, you're hurt!” Patton yelled. Roman and Logan’s eyes widened in fear as they saw just how much there blood was. 

“Don't worry, Patton.” Virgil coughed. “I'm already dead inside, so there's not really anything else that can hurt me.”

“You know, I don't know if that makes sense.” Logan replied, his eyes still focused on Virgil’s injuries. 

“Yeah? Well, whatever, Nerd.”

“What happened, Virgil?!”Roman yelled. 

“Don't worry about it.” Virgil reassured his brother, before he ran over to Logan and began to try and unlock Logan’s cuffs as his hands shook. 

“What are you doing?” Logan asked cautiously. 

“I'm getting you out of here.” Virgil said, his voice filled with determination.

“Why?” Logan asked, causing Virgil’s heart to break. He understood that Logan had no reason to trust him, but he had hoped… Virgil quickly ran to Patton as he finally managed to unlock Logan’s chains. 

“B-Because I care about you, idiot.” He said as he unlocked Patton’s chains and then did the same for Roman. 

Patton ran over to Virgil and quickly placed his hands on Virgil’s stomach. 

“Patton, wait! You guys need to get out of here!” Virgil muttered. 

“Not until you're okay!” Patton answered, focused on the task at hand. Virgil couldn't hold back the sigh of relief as he felt his stomach knit itself back together.

“T-Thank you.”

“I-It's okay, kiddo.” Patton said shakily, as he eyed the blood covering his clothes and hands. 

“We should go.” Virgil said, slowly forcing himself up. 

“How can we trust you? How do we know this isn't a trap?” Logan said. 

“Well, you made it out safely the last time I helped you escape after having been stabbed in the stomach by Roman’s sword, so I'd say my track record was pretty good.” Virgil replied as he made his way out the door and beckoned for the others to follow him. 

“Well, yes, but at the time you were working with Deceit and planning to spy on us and then kill us.” 

“You are always so caught up in the details!” Virgil dismissed as he began to climb the stairs. 

“Virgil.” Roman grabbed his hand. “Please. I… I want to trust you. I do. But after what happened I don't know if I can. I need… I need some kind of proof, Virge! I need something!”

“Roman, please. I promise you, I'm on your side!” Virgil looked his brother in the eyes, begging him to trust him even if only for a moment. It didn't matter what they did to him afterwards, he just had to get them to trust him long enough to get them out of the house. 

“We will follow you for now, because we don't have a better option.” Logan relented. 

“Thank you.” Virgil sighed in relief. 

“But together we can easily take you down, and if we think for one second that you're leading us into a trap, we won't hesitate.”

“Great…” Virgil muttered, and then opened the door. 

“Oh my God!” Patton gasped as the three heroes entered the room to Deceit lying on the floor in a pool of blood. “Is he…?” 

“No, he's still breathing.” Logan replied. 

“We don't have time for this! We need to go!” Virgil yelled, desperate to look anywhere but the place where Deceit was currently bleeding out on the ground. 

“We have to do something…” Patton muttered. “We can't just leave him here.”

“Um, yes we can.” Virgil tried to get them to keep walking. 

“But he's hurt!” Patton tried to argue. 

“And who do you think did that to him?!” Virgil screamed. 

Patton gasped. “Virgil? Why would yo-”

“I didn't have a choice, okay? Now let's go!”

“But we can't just let him die. We have to turn him into the authorities or something… Maybe he could change or-”

Virgil cut Roman off with a snarl. “Change?! The fuck, Roman? Deceit’s not going to change, he's just going to find a way to escape from wherever he's locked up and then he's going to come for us again. Now let's go!”

“But-”

“He'll be fine!” Virgil lied. 

Patton and Roman reluctantly followed Virgil and Logan to the door, glancing behind them as they went. 

Once the three of them had left the house, Virgil pressed the button on the remote that would hopefully activate the explosives Virgil had placed around the house. A tense moment of silence followed. 

Virgil had a brief moment of panic, terrified at the thought of his plan not working and having to fight against a very angry Deceit. Then Patton and Roman let out a scream. The four of them span around as the house behind them exploded. The windows blew out and flames began to climb the side of the house. Virgil felt his stomach sink as he saw people begin to run out into the street, screaming while desperately trying to work out what was happening. 

Beginning to freak out, his gaze turned to the neighbouring houses and was relieved to see that everyone was evacuating. Patton seemed to have had the same thought and began to frantically run towards the house, but Logan held him back. 

“It's okay, Patton. No one has been hurt.”

“We don't know that!” The hero yelled. Virgil flinched at the fear and worry in Patton’s eyes. He knew that he did the right thing, and that he hadn't had a choice but… He definitely hadn't thought this through. 

“I have observed everyone around us, and no one is either hurt or exhibiting the distress that would indicate the injury of a loved one.”

“O-Okay. Okay.” Patton began to calm, before his eyes widened. “B-But what about Deceit?”

Virgil squeezed his eyes shut. 

“We have to help him!”

“Patton, I… I don't think…” Roman looked away. “I don't think he could have survived that.”

“B-But… I don't understand… What happened?” Patton whispered. 

Virgil flinched. 

“I don't know, I-” Roman met Virgil’s gaze, and he hurriedly looked away. “Virgil?” 

Virgil remained silent. 

“Virgil, you didn't have something to do with this, did you?” Roman asked. 

Virgil looked down at the ground. 

Roman began to raise his voice. “Virgil, what did you do?!”

“N-Nothing…”

“Don't you dare lie to me!”

“Roman, I…”

“I… I can't believe this.” Roman glanced back at the burning building. “How the hell could you do something like this?!”

“I-I don't understand. W-What did he do?” 

Virgil turned away, desperate not to make eye contact with Patton or Logan. He had had a chance to actually be friends with them again, and then he'd gone and ruined it. 

“I didn't… I didn't have a choice!” Virgil finally said, desperate to provide some kind of explanation. 

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately.” His brother glared back at him. 

“I-I… Look, the people in that house over there ar- were a threat to both us and the world as a whole, so it-”

“People? Virgil, how many people were in there?” Patton’s eyes were wide. And he looked scared. Virgil felt like crying when he realised it was him that Patton was scared of. 

“Th-There were three. Deceit, and his two main allies.”

“What is wrong with you, Virgil?!” Roman screamed. 

“I was just trying to do the right thing!” Virgil yelled back, furious at Roman for the way he was acting. It wasn't as though Virgil had just killed three people because he wanted to! He hadn't had a choice. 

“Well that sure as hell wasn't the right thing! You just killed three people, how can you be so fucking casual right now?!”

“I-”

Oh, yeah, I remember now. It's because you've done this before!”

“Well I've got some news for you, Princey! Maybe killing people is wrong, but sometimes it's the only fucking option, okay?! And I don't like it, but it wasn't as though I had a choice so if you could stop acting like the noble hero who is always in the right, get off your high horse and realise that sometimes bad things can be done for the right reasons that would for fan-fucking-tastic!”

“You keep asking us to trust you, Virgil, and then you keep going and doing things like this!” Roman yelled. 

“B-But… They would have killed us, okay?! You think I wanted to do this?! Of course I fucking didn't! I've known Deceit for years, do you really think I'd want to…”

Roman looked him in the eyes. “I don't know what to think.”

Virgil forced back tears. “R-Roman, I…”

His brother began to walk away.

Virgil turned to Patton and Logan. “Please, I…”

“I do believe that some of your earlier statements were correct, Virgil. However, the fact remains that killing people is not morally correct, and that you should've at least consulted us before you did this.”

Virgil’s despair turned to anger. “Consulted with you?!”

Logan sighed. “As much as I’d like to, Virgil, the fact remains that I find it hard to trust you to make the right choice given your past history. And as today has just proven, not consulting with us leads to you making decisions that are damagin-”

“Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise that I needed to check with you before I made a single decision. Which, of course, was a foolish oversight on my part because as we all know I am completely incapable of making any decision that isn't somehow evil and damaging to society! And of course you are always completely right, oh wise and noble hero, a-”

“That is not what I meant, Virgil!”

“Oh really, so what did you mean?!”

“I just-”

“You don't trust me. I get it.”

“I'm sorry, Virgil. I wish I could, but-”

“It's fine. You have every reason not to. I get it. I'm not the good guy, and you guys can't trust someone who-”

“Of course you're the good guy, Virgil.” Patton muttered softly. 

“W-What…?” Virgil started, taken aback by Patton’s words. 

“M-Maybe you did bad things, but you were never a bad person, Virgil.” Patton continued.

“I-I…”

“I believe… I believe Patton may be right. I… I don't know if I can trust you just yet… But I… I think one day I will.” Logan said. 

Virgil smiled shyly. “I… Thanks.” 

Roman remained silent.

“Roman?” Virgil asked. 

Roman began walking towards the city. 

“He'll come around eventually.” Patton whispered, before he began to follow Roman, evidently relieved to be finally be going home. Logan followed him shortly afterwards. Virgil, left on his own, glanced back to the remains of Deceit’s house with a single tear rolling down his face. 

He knew Deceit hadn't cared about him, he knew that Deceit was a villain and had harmed a lot of people, including Virgil’s friends. But…

Even if their friendship hadn't meant anything to Deceit, it had meant everything to Virgil. There was a time when Deceit had been Virgil’s whole world. And know he was gone. Virgil shut his eyes tightly, trying to stop more tears from escaping, and remembered. 

He remembered laughing with Deceit as they sat together watching a Disney film. 

He remembered Deceit taking care of him after his first injury during a fight with Logan, Patton and Roman. 

He remembered Deceit hugging him when he returned home after being away for two weeks, telling him how much he missed him. 

He remembered Deceit comforting him in the weeks after his family kicked him out.

He remembered Deceit teaching him how to control his powers, constantly reassuring him that he was doing really well and that Deceit knew that he could do it. 

Virgil opened his eyes and looked at the house once more, letting the tears fall. It held so many bad memories, but it also held so many good ones. 

“Virgil? What's wrong? We need to go!” Logan called. 

“Coming.” Virgil’s voice cracked. 

He turned back to the house. “I-I know that you didn't care. I-I know if our positions were reversed you wouldn't give me a second thought. B-But…” Virgil broke into sobs. “It's stupid, I know! I should hate you… and I do! But there will always be a part of me that… that cares for you, that loves you…” Virgil hurriedly wiped his eyes and looked away. “B-But… But you're gone now. A-And I-I have to move on. And that's a good thing. G-Goodbye, Deceit.”

Virgil turning his back and walked away. 

“Are you alright, Virgil?” Patton asked as he ran back to walk with him. 

“N-No…” Virgil answered truthfully. “But I think… I think one day I will be.”


	34. Chapter 34

“How is it going in here, Virgil?” Patton asked as he entered Virgil’s room. The same room Virgil has been shut in for the past week. 

“Well I went from escaping one prison to being forced into another, so I'm feeling pretty great about that.” Virgil muttered, shoving his face into his pillow. 

Patton sighed. “I'm sorry, Virgil. I'm sure the other two will come around eventually, they just… I'm sure you wouldn't be stuck in here for much longer.”

“It's been a week, Patton! I get that they have their reasons not to trust me, but I didn't finally stand up to and escape from Deceit just to live the rest of my life locked in my only friends’ spare bedroom!” Virgil growled, refusing to meet his friend's eyes. While he appreciated how nice Patton had been to him both before and after the three heroes were captured by Deceit, a part of him was still angry that Patton hadn't done anything to stop the other two locking him in his room for the week, and the fact that he still didn't seem to be doing anything to get him out. 

“I know, Virgil, but you've got to have faith in them. They just need some more time. It was… It was hard for all of us, when we thought you betrayed us… It's hard to just forget about that sometimes…”

“You did.” Virgil mumbled. 

“Well of course I did!” Patton beamed. “I could never stay mad my kiddo! And I am sure that Logan and Roman will forgive you as well, they just need some time to-”

“But why the fuck am I the one that needs forgiveness!” Virgil screamed. “Do you have any idea how much I've done for the three of you?! How hard it was to protect you guys from him?! How hard it was to…”

Patton ran over and wrapped his arms around him. “I know, Virgil. I know. It's okay.” He whispered soothingly. 

“N-No you d-don't.” Virgil sobbed. “None of you do. None of you have any idea…”

“Then help us understand, Virgil. I can't help you if you don't open up to me.”

Virgil laughed harshly. “What do you want me to say, Patton?! Deceit manipulated me and he lied to me, and I was dumb enough to believe him and think that he cared about me. I was stupid, weak and easy to manipulate and a lot of innocent people suffered because of it! And now I have to live with that knowledge for the rest of my life!”

“Virgil, I-”

“And you know what, sometimes I… I still miss him! And you can't even begin to imagine what it's like to miss the man who hurt you in so many ways you'll never be the same because of it, okay? You have no idea!” Virgil looked back at his wall, turning his back on his friend. 

Patton was silent of a minute. “I…”

“Patton, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you. It's just… It’s just frustrating. All of it. I thought… I thought it was over, you know? That I'd never have to even think about Deceit again, but…”

“I'm sorry too, Virgil. I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you.”

Virgil turned back around, blinking the tears out of his eyes. “It wasn't not your fault, Patton, none of it was.”

“I know. And none of the things that happened was your fault either, okay? But that doesn't mean I can't be sorry about what happened.”

“Thanks.”

“It's okay, Virgil. I may never fully understand what you went through, but I can sure as hell help you through it!”

“Language!” Virgil gasped, looking at Patton in mock outrage. 

Patton giggled. 

Virgil smiled back. There was a minute of comfortable silence between the two of them.

“What about you?” Virgil asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“I-I mean… Well I can't just act like I was the only one who got hurt in this situation. Deceit may not have hurt you the same way he hurt me, but that doesn't make what happened to you any less horrible.”

“Oh.” Patton paused, before his face lit up with a bright smile. “Well, that's very kind of you, kiddo, but you really don't have to go worrying about your old dad!”

“Mm hm?” Virgil raised his eyebrows. “I thought we'd already talked about the whole ‘pretending you are physically incapable of thinking anything other than happy thoughts’ thing.”

Patton grinned at him. “You see, this is why I love you, Virgil. You are always so thoughtful and caring when it comes to your friends! And I really appreciate that kiddo. I-”

“Oh hell no! Don't you even think about deflecting this conversation!”

“I-I… I wasn't…” Patton trailed off as he saw Virgil staring at him, very much unconvinced. “I… I will admit that it wasn't exactly fun, Virge, but compared to what you went through-”

Virgil sighed. “It's okay for you to have been affected by what happened, just like it's okay for you to be angry at me for what happened to Deceit.”

“I'm not an-”

“Stop it, Patton! I've heard enough lies to last a lifetime, so don't you dare try and lie to me!”

“Kiddo…” Patton whispered. “You're… You're right, I'm… I'm not okay… but I'm not angry at you, Virgil. I could never be angry at you. I just didn't like what you did.”

Virgil clenched his fists in anger. “What, you think that I liked it?! I-”

Virgil was cut off as Patton wrapped him in a hug. “I'm not Roman, Virgil, I understand what you did. It took me a little while, but I understand now. I understand that there wasn't another way, and they you didn't have a choice. I just wish you hadn't had to do what you did, because I know that it hurt you.”

Virgil froze. 

“You okay, kiddo?”

Virgil hugged Patton tightly. “Thank you.” Virgil whispered into his friend’s shoulder. 

Patton hugged him back. “It's okay, kiddo. Everything is going to be okay from now on. I promise you.”

… 

Patton quietly closed the door to Virgil’s room. 

“I thought we told you not to go in there, Patton.” 

Letting out a small squeak of surprise, he spun around sharply to see Logan standing behind him. “I'm sorry, I just… I don't understand why he has to be locked up! I mean, you said you would trust him, Logan! So why are you still treating him like the enemy!?”

Logan sighed. “I want to trust him, Patton, but to do that I need some kind of evidence that he isn't going to betray us again, and that h-”

“So fighting off Deceit, getting stabbed, protecting all of us from Deceit and saving our lives wasn't enough?!”

“I know, Patton, but we thought he was on our side before, and he-”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Logan! Deceit was manipulating him, and Deceit did so many horrible things to him, that the fact that he managed to fight against him for the three of us should be a lot more than enough to demonstrate where his loyalties lie!”

“I… You're right, Patton, it's just… I thought he was my friend. But apparently he wasn't. It's stupid, I know, but-”

“That's not at all stupid, Logan!” Patton said firmly. “It's okay to feel betrayed, but you have to understand things from Virgil’s point of view. Virgil hurt me too, but he didn't do it because he wanted to, and we have to remember that it hurt him just as much as it hurt us!”

Logan looked away. “Bu-”

“Now you listen here, young man! In that room there is one of the best and most amazing friends any of us will ever have, and you are going to march in there and talk to him right now, because I am not putting up with this any longer!”

Patton smiled as Logan hastily slipped into Virgil’s room. Never underestimate the power of the dad voice! 

… 

“Virgil?” Logan asked cautiously as he entered Virgil’s room. 

“No, it's Satan.” Virgil muttered from the bed. 

Logan smiled fondly. 

“Before you say anything, you should know that while these walls are pretty good, they're not that good. So I heard pretty much everything Patton screamed at you a minute ago, as did everyone in the entire building.”

“I see.” 

“Listen dude, I can just tell Patton that you apologised, you don't actually have to-”

“No, Virgil, I…” Logan sighed. “I will admit that I have been hesitant to trust you again, because I felt like… like you had betrayed me. I don't tend to let a lot of people get close to me, but I did with you, and when you went against us it… it was very painful.”

Virgil looked away. “Logan, I-I…I'm sorry… I-I didn't mean-”

“I know you didn't, Virgil. And it has not been fair of me to take my anger out on you, when it should have been Deceit that I was angry at. You didn't have a choice in what you did, and it has been wrong of me- it has been wrong of all of us to blame you for it. You've done some bad things, Virgil, but Deceit is to blame for all of them. And I don't think even you always acknowledge that fact, but I will most certainly do so in the future.”

Virgil remained quiet for a minute, before he turned around and looked Logan in the eye. “T-Thank you. Thank you, Logan.” Virgil sighed. “A-And for what it's worth, I am sorry. I'm really sorry.”

“I know, Virgil.”

“Group hug!” Patton burst in through the door. 

“Patton, no!” Logan yelled as Patton ran at him and latched onto him. 

“Just for the record, this is totally your fault.” Virgil growled at him as he was crushed in Patton’s embrace.

Patton giggled. 

“What are you guys doing?”

They all jumped as Roman appeared in the doorway. 

“Something tells me you're not here to join in the hug.” Virgil muttered, slowly detaching himself from Patton’s clutches. 

Feeling the tension in the air, Logan grabbed Patton’s arm. “Come on, Patton. I think we should be going now.”

Patton tilted his head in confusion, before his eyes widened and he began to follow Logan towards the door. 

“You guys have a nice chat now!” Patton smiled, before shoving Roman into the room and slamming the door. 

“Well, let's hope they don't kill each other.” Logan said, only half joking. 

“I'm sure, Roman will come around. He just needs a little bit of encouragement, that's all.” Patton smiled at him. 

Logan raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “We shall see.”

…

“Well I…I don't really know what I'm supposed to say here. You lied to us, you manipulated us, you hurt us, you… I mean what do you expect me to say?” Roman muttered once they were alone. 

“Oh I don't know, maybe something along the lines of ‘thank you for saving my life, that was a really nice thing to do, especially as it was really hard for you to do and you were stabbed in the process’. That sounds about right.”

“Didn't seem as though you found it very hard when you went and blew up three people.” Roman growled. 

“Yeah, and those people were just so great, weren't they?! Oh look how evil I am, going around killing three innocent people, I'm so horrible… Oh wait! They weren't innocent, they were murderers!”

“That doesn't excuse-”

“Um, yeah, it kinda does!” Virgil cut in. “Because if I hadn't killed them, are you actually naive enough to believe that anyone would have been able to lock them up and put them on trial without them escaping and coming around to kill us?! And if that had been possible, they'd have been given the fucking death sentence anyway! I just made sure that it happened, because I didn't want them to be able to hurt us or anyone else again!”

“And what gives you the right to decide that?!”

“Well, Roman, excuse me if I'm wrong about this but I like to believe the three years of suffering I went through because of that piece of shit gave me the right!”

“W-Well… It doesn't!” Roman spluttered. 

“Seriously?” Virgil raised his eyebrows. “That's the best you can do?”

“N-No, i-it's not… I just…” 

Virgil narrowed his eyes in confusion and suspicion at Roman’s sudden change in attitude. 

“The… The things he did to you while we were there, the way he treated you, how much of that was… I mean…”

“If you're asking if the way you saw him act is the same as the way he has been treating me for the past three years, then yes. Although it started fine, it just… it just got worse. Especially after you guys showed up. And then I just kept failing, and he kept getting so angry, and…” Virgil cut himself off with a sob. 

“It still doesn't excuse any of the things you've done, Virgil… but…damn it… I get it, Virgil! I mean I don't understand what it is you went through, but the things you did… I can see why… And I don't know how to feel about that, because you hurt me and Patton and Logan and so many other people!” Roman slammed his fist into the wall. “So how exactly am I supposed to see you now?”

“I… I don't know…” 

“Seriously? That's the best you can do?” Roman mocked, laughing half heartedly. 

“Roman, I get it, okay? I understand. I mean, you're wrong, but I do understand why you feel so conflicted. But… But to judge me for what I did for Deceit, that's just unfair, Roman! I did it because I didn't have a choice, and I know that you know that, you are just too stubborn to admit it!”

“But… it was wro-”

“Don't you dare give me that bullshit!”

“Oh, so I'm just meant to pat you on the back and tell you that killing people is totally fine?!”

“Oh for fucks sake Roman! I get that it's not fucking okay but I didn't have fucking a choice! What part of this is not getting through that thick skull of yours, you fucking egg?! This conversation is getting really fucking boring, so can you just accept the fact that what happened fucking happened and move the fuck on!”

“I…but…”

“I'm sorry, what was that? Did you just say ‘Sorry, Virgil, I am an idiot and I am really sorry for not appreciating everything you've done for me?’, because that really sounds like something you should be saying.”

“You… You do have a point, Virgil… But-”

“Seriously?! Can we not just leave it at ‘you have a point’?!”

“Virgil…” Roman sighed. “I do want to trust you, and I want to be your friend and your brother, because I love you and I've missed you. But I just don't think I'm ready to do that. And I'm sorry. I want to be, but I just don't think I can… I still feel betrayed… And I know I shouldn't! I know! I just… I'm sorry, but…”

 

“Roman… I… I'm not asking for you to suddenly start going around liking me again, okay? Because I know I've made mistakes. And I am very, very sorry for the ones I have made. But… could we maybe just… start again? You don't have to trust me, Roman, I'm not going to expect that from you. That wouldn't be fair. But it isn't fair for you to just mindlessly hate me either.”

“...Okay.”

“What, really?”

“I'm by no means ready to trust you again, Virgil, and I don't think I will be able to for a long time. But I miss my brother. And maybe you didn't have as much of a choice in a lot of your decisions as I blamed you for.”

Virgil smiled shyly. “Thanks, dude.”

Roman hesitantly smiled back. 

“They are just so cute!” Patton whispered from the doorway. 

Roman and Virgil turned around to stare at Patton and Logan, who had both clearly snuck back in while the two brothers were screaming at each other to see what was going on. 

“So can we have a proper group hug now?” Patton asked, running over and trapping Virgil and Roman in his arms. 

“I'd rather not.” Logan grumbled, but was quick to join in, causing Virgil to raise his eyebrows at his friend.

“See kiddo, I told you it would be okay.” Patton whispered in Virgil’s ear. 

“Yes. Yes you did.” Virgil muttered, smiling.


	35. Chapter 35

“After weeks of unexplained absence in which our city has been under intense attack from Deceit and Anxiety, Morality, Logic and Creativity have finally returned. They have confirmed that they were indeed being held captive by the villains, and have informed the world of their daring escape and subsequent defeat of the villain Deceit. The three heroes have assured the world that both Deceit and Anxiety are no longer a threat, although they have been receiving backlash over their claim that Anxiety sided with them and assisted in their defeat of Deceit. The villain himself was unavailable for comment. Nonetheless, the city has been in a frenzy of celebration, and plans are already being put into place to rebuild the statue of Creativity, which was destroyed by Anxiety earlier this year. Similar statues of Logic and Morality are also being built to celebrate the three heroes and all they have done to protect our city. Whether or not Anxiety should be given the same honour is still in debate. Should Anxiety be celebrated for saving us, or should the fact that he has been pardoned for all his previous crimes due to his apparent shift in loyalties be enough? More on that, after the break.”

Logan switched off the TV, content at the coverage of their story. While he would have preferred the public to be more accepting of Virgil, he could understand their hesitancy, given everything that had happened in the past. He just hoped it wouldn't last very long. 

Glancing around the room he smiled at the sight of all of his three friends gathered together. While Roman and Virgil’s relationship was improving, they still had some way to go, but over the past few days especially Roman seemed to be spending more and more time with his brother. Logan was happy that the four friends seemed to be finally coming together again. 

“You know, you still haven't apologised for attacking my statue!” Roman said suddenly, grinning at Virgil, who was currently perched on the arm of the sofa. 

“You can't really expect me to apologise for destroying that ugly hunk of rock!” Virgil replied.

“Ugly hunk of rock?! Ugly?! But it's a statue of me!” Roman leapt up in outrage. 

Virgil smirked at his phone “Exactly.”

Roman tilted his head in confusion, before his eyes widened in realisation and he spluttered in indignation. “H-How… How dare you…!”

“Now that wasn't very nice, Virgil.” Patton admonished, still grinning at the joke. 

“Neither is Roman’s face.” Virgil muttered. 

“That is it! I will stand for this no more!” Roman leapt to his feet and shoved Virgil off his perch on the arm of the sofa, causing him to hiss at his brother from his spot on the floor. 

“Aw! He's like a little kitten!” Patton squealed. 

“You will pay for this.” Virgil growled at Roman. 

Logan peered at the three of them from behind his book. “You do realise, Virgil, that had you been sitting properly in the first place you would have been a lot harder to knock over and so would probably not be lying on the floor right now.”

“Traitor.” Virgil snarled, lifting himself off the floor and stalking back to his spot.

“I do not understand your need to sit on things that are clearly not chairs.” Roman muttered, looking suspiciously at his brother’s choice of resting place. 

“It's how I relax after a tough day. I go and sit on a surface that isn't meant to be sat on.”

“Why?!”

“Because when tomorrow comes I will be faced with more challenges, and I am too overwhelmed to be worrying about what is, and is not, a chair.”

The three of them were silent for a minute. 

““You know, Virgil, I don't think that makes sense.”

Virgil glared at him. “Yeah… well neither does your face.”

“I don't believe that that makes sense either-” Logan ducked as Virgil threw a pillow at his head.

“Just let me have my insult!”

“I would hardly call it an insult when it can be found in the vocabulary of any mildly intelligent three-year-old. Where exactly have you picked this up from?” Logan incredulously. 

“Roman.” 

“Ah, of course. That makes sense.”

“What's that supposed to mean?!”

“It means you have the mental ability of a mildly intelligent three-year-old. I'd take it as a compliment if I were you.” Virgil smirked. 

“And I suppose you picked up your new habit of throwing possibly dangerous objects at people from Roman as well?”

Virgil raised his eyebrows. “Okay, first of all, it's a fucking pillow, dude. And on the subject, you do realise you could have just used your telekinesis to block it, right?”

Logan froze. “Yes. Yes, I was aware of that.”

“Sure…” Virgil smirked at him. 

Logan raised an eyebrow, and then used hs telekinesis to throw three pillows straight at Virgil’s head, causing him to fall off the sofa once again. 

“Seriously?!” Virgil growled as he seated himself back on the arm of the sofa once again. “I swear, if anyone else…”

“Hey, Patton?” Roman stage whispered. “Please push Virgil off the sofa.”

“Patton, please do not push Virgil off the sofa.” Virgil glared at Roman. 

“Patton doesn't want to push anyone off the sofa!” Patton exclaimed. 

“Why is everyone talking in third person?!” Logan looked around in confusion. 

“Well, actually, Roman wasn't.” Roman replied, grinning. 

“But… But you just did…” Logan spluttered. 

“Roman, I think you broke him.” Virgil whispered. 

“I give up.” Logan sighed and turned back to his book. 

“How are we all feeling today, kiddos?” Patton began after a moment of silence. 

“Amazing!”

“Satisfactory.”

“Not too bad I guess…”

Since their time with Deceit, Patton had been frequently checking up on them to make sure they were all okay. He had originally wanted the three of them to actually go to therapy together, but Logan had been quick to remind Patton of the slight complications involving that particular idea. While Logan had agreed with the idea in theory, in practice it would be hard for the three heroes and former villain to discuss their experiences without revealing their alter egos. 

“How about you, Patton? You doing okay?” Virgil asked. 

“Yeah, I'm doing pretty great, kiddo. I'm just happy to be here with all of you guys.”

“Aw! That's so cute!” Roman squealed. 

“Nope. Too many feels.” Virgil turned back to his phone. 

Logan smiled at all of them, and them rolled his eyes. “You're all idiots.” He muttered fondly. 

“But we're your idiots.” Patton grinned. 

“We get it. You're adorable.” Logan said, clapping his hands together. 

“But not as adorable as me!” Roman exclaimed. 

“You keep telling yourself that, Romano.”

“Fine. I will.” Roman stuck his tongue out at his brother, causing Logan to roll his eyes yet again. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Not that he minded. 

“Oh my god! Guys, now that Virgil is a hero and not a villain, we should totally give him a makeover!” Roman yelled suddenly. 

“Try it. See what happens.” Virgil snarled. 

Logan flicked his eyes back to the black TV screen. It was true that changes would have to be made, now that Virgil had joined them. Logan was of course under no delusion that with Deceit gone the four of them would never never experience any kind of threat ever again, or that the public would just accept Virgil othernight. They had a lot of difficult times ahead of them. 

But that was for another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you've all enjoyed this! Just so you guys know I will most likely be writing a sequel to this, but I want to take a little break and write some other things first.
> 
> Thank you so much for everyone's support, I have really appreciated it! Also thanks to my amazing editor Ella for dealing with my awful use of punctuation!


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